I use this mat on the top of my workbench as a work surface. Having the inverse color choice on each side is nice, and they made some smart choices with the number and tick mark design along the sides. There are smaller dots arranged in the grid squares that allow for gauging things on slightly smaller scale.

I took a shot on this book and am really glad I did. Last year I had purchased a book by a different author on Quicken 2011 and found it to be dry and unapproachable. The author of this book has made my experience with software books a thousand times better.