Buy some books that will make you work smarter this holiday season.Someone said once that a smart person is that one that invests more money in things that will go inside his head than in things that stay outside. Now is your turn to buy some knowledge for yourself or for anyone you know.
The main CAD programs have several Books that will let you improve the way you work with them. Although books are never as good as practice, practice and practice, they are a good reference to have in hand to learn new features of a program. Here are some of the ones that seemed the best deals for me this end of 2008 for some of the programs you might be trying to
AutoCAD
Beginner - AutoCAD 2009 for Dummies
The "for Dummies" series with its plain language let you learn the basics of almost anything. A great deal for its price (around $16 / £10). Sometimes as I often write ere we overlook the basics of programs missing some fundamental tricks to work smarter. here you´ll find a lot.
or 
Expert - AutoCAD 2009 Bible:
The Bible by Ellen Filkenstein has been for years a reference Book for those who want to go deep in their AutoCAD Knowlege. Even the latest 2009 version is quite affordable (the book sells for around $30 or £20) and has plenty of knowledgeable tips. All you need to know (besides what you read here) about AutoCAD.
or SketchUp:
Beginner - SketchUp For Dummies
With about 250 pages to get introduced to all the basic SketchUp features and some more to start using some other intermediate procedures.I think the "for Dummies" series can lack sometimes a bit of seriousness and the language is not always very clear, but in this release they did a pretty good Job.
or Advanced - SketchUp Advanced Tutorials
Bonnie Roskes publishes her own books. (See a previous posts we talked about the books for kids). This one is the one addressed to the ones who want to know more about this fantastic software. Here I want to stress again that there is no better training than practice. But buying a book doesn´t hurt anyone I guess.Tweet
