'Star Trek' game will boldly go massively multiplayer

After decades of TV, movies, cartoons and books, a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game, Star Trek Online , opens today for exploring ($50 for PCs, plus subscription $12.99-$14.99 a month; rated T for teens 13-up).

The MMO game transports players directly into the beloved science-fiction franchise. Starting as a Starfleet officer, the player chooses a specialty — science (à la Spock, a science officer), engineering (Scotty) or tactical (Worf from The Next Generation ) — and progresses to a ship captain.

"We want to make it feel as though you are one of the characters in the shows or in one of the movies ... flying your ship with your crew and beaming down to strange, alien planets," says Craig Zinkievich of developer Cryptic Studios ( Champions Online , City of Heroes ).

The game is faithful to the franchise and is "truly

Cheap Online Media : How to Read Great Books Online for Free

A number of Web sites host e-books that can be read for free online as long as the user enters an email address. Read great books online for free ...

Leadership on the Line (Book Summary) (10 minute read)

Harvard Business School Press

List Price: $3.95

Product Description

Leadership isn't exactly easy. The best leaders often force their followers to face unpleasant realities, to figure out solutions for themselves and to face the changes that inevitably follow. That's what makes leadership so risky, as Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky argue in their book. The authors analyze the successes and failures of leaders ranging from Yitzhak Rabin to Bill Clinton, with stops along the way to examine the varied leadership styles of former Coca-Cola CEO M. Douglas Ivester and NBA coach Phil Jackson. The authors provide managerial rules of thumb as they mix real-world examples of leaders in action with leadership theory to present a guide to the dynamics of taking charge. This book summary was produced by Harvard Business Press in partnership with getAbstract.

Selling Used Books Online: The Complete Guide to Bookselling at Amazon's Marketplace and Other Online Sites

Harvard Perspective Pr

List Price: $17.95

Product Description

Book Description

Selling Used Books Online is a comprehensive how-to bible for America's newest and fastest growing group of entrepreneurs, the sellers on Amazon Marketplace and other online venues. Author Stephen Windwalker, a successful online seller himself who has also operated a brick-and-mortar bookshop, provides a treasure trove of up-to-date information with verve, clarity, and wit.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has reported that the number of third-party sellers on his company's website grew from over 100,000 in the fourth quarter of 2001 to over 150,000 in the first quarter of 2002, and roughly one-third of these appear to be entrepreneurial sellers who are operating full- or part-time businesses in competition with each other, with Amazon, and with very large Amazon Marketplace sellers such as Powell's, the Strand bookstore, and Alibris. For these 50,000 entrepreneurs, Selling Used Books Online will be a powerful business resource that will help them level the playing field, stay in business, and prosper.

Selling Used Books Online meets the needs of booksellers and business readers who want to stay current on market changes, best sources, insider's tips and tactics, and best practices, and is also a essential addition for public libraries, the small business and entrepreneurship market and related agency and educational markets, and publishing industry and bibliophile readers. Back matter includes several useful appendices that online booksellers will use on a daily basis: a glossary, a list of standard bookseller abbreviations, a casual bibliography of resources on bookselling and collecting, and an online bookseller's "Rolodex."

The Most Up-To-Date Book In Its Field, Covering:
· THE BOOKSELLING BUSINESS· SUPPLIERS AND SOURCES
· WHERE TO GET YOUR BOOKS
· WHAT BOOKS TO GET
· WHERE TO SELL YOUR BOOKS
· GRADING AND DESCRIBING YOUR BOOKS
· POSTING AND PRICING YOUR BOOKS
· ORGANIZING YOUR BUSINESS AND HANDLING TAX ISSUES
· FULFILLMENT AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
· EXPANSION ISSUES AND FUTURE PLANS
· HANDY REFERENCE TOOLS YOU WILL USE EVERY DAY


No Line on the Horizon (Limited Box Set including CD, Film, Hardcover Book, Poster)

Interscope Records

List Price: $95.98
Price: $71.98
You Save: $24.00 (25%)

Product Description

No Line On The Horizon, the new studio album from U2, will be released on Tues, March 3, 2009. The band’s 12th studio album calls on the production talents of long-time collaborators Brian Eno and Danny Lanois, with additional production by Steve Lillywhite. The album will be available in 5 different packages.

This version is a deluxe limited-edition-collectors item: packaged in a special box, album CD in a cardboard folded sleeve w/ 36 page color booklet and fold out poster. Box also includes 60-page hard cover book plus an additional fold-out poster and a DVD of the new film from Anton Corbijn featuring the music of U2 in a slip case cover.

Walt Disney Treasures - On the Front Lines

Walt Disney Video

List Price: $32.99

Product Description

On December 8, 1941, the Disney Studio was taken over by the military as part of the war effort. Making the most of the talent that hadn't shipped out yet, Walt Disney spent the next four years creating and producing training, propaganda, and educational films for the Armed Forces. In addition to these films, this extraordinary volume also includes the full-length feature "Victory Through Air Power." Released theatrically in 1943, this powerful propaganda film has never been reissued until now. You'll also see recently discovered on-the-set footage, and get rare firsthand accounts about the work and culture at the Disney Studio in interviews with Disney Legends Joe Grant, John Hench, and Roy Disney. Featuring exclusive introductions by film historian Leonard Maltin, this is a timeless collection from generations past for generations to come.
World War II transformed the Disney Studio. Although nearly one-third of the artists had been drafted, production quintupled, up to 95% of it for military and government uses. Some of the films included in On the Front Lines have not been seen since their initial release; others were never shown to the general public. Anticipating the importance of animated training films, Disney produced the studio's first educational film, "Four Methods of Flush Riveting" (1941), using limited animation to train riveters at Lockheed. Decades later, "Four Methods" and the excerpts from military training films remain models of how to present information clearly and concisely.

Many of the wartime entertainment shorts are largely propaganda. Donald's nightmare of working on a Nazi assembly line in "Der Fuehrer's Face" is still hilarious slapstick. The grimmer "Education for Death" and "Chicken Little" have aged less gracefully. Disney's oddest wartime project was Victory Through Air Power (1943), a live action/animation feature based on Major Alex de Seversky's controversial book that called for the adoption of long-range bombers. By the time it was finished, air power was a reality.

Front Lines also includes several health films made for the Office of Inter-American Affairs, and bond-buying shorts for Canada that reuse animation from Snow White and "Three Little Pigs." This collection of genuine rarities is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of animation, the Disney Studio, or America during WWII. (Rated G, suitable for ages 10 and older: violence, ethnic stereotypes, tobacco use) --Charles Solomon


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