Dale's bookshelf: technical en-US Mon, 22 May 2023 04:28:05 -0700 60 Dale's bookshelf: technical 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[DNS and BIND (Nutshell Handbooks)]]> 3821689

DNS and BIND tells you everything you need to work with one of the Internet's fundamental building blocks: the distributed host information database that's responsible for translating names into addresses, routing mail to its proper destination, and even listing phone numbers with the new ENUM standard. This book brings you up-to-date with the latest changes in this crucial service.


The fifth edition covers BIND 9.3.2, the most recent release of the BIND 9 series, as well as BIND 8.4.7. BIND 9.3.2 contains further improvements in security and IPv6 support, and important new features such as internationalized domain names, ENUM (electronic numbering), and SPF (the Sender Policy Framework).


Whether you're an administrator involved with DNS on a daily basis or a user who wants to be more informed about the Internet and how it works, you'll find that this book is essential reading.


Topics include:

What DNS does, how it works, and when you need to use it How to find your own place in the Internet's namespace Setting up name servers Using MX records to route mail Configuring hosts to use DNS name servers Subdividing domains (parenting) Securing your name server: restricting who can query your server, preventing unauthorized zone transfers, avoiding bogus servers, etc. The DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) and Transaction Signatures (TSIG) Mapping one name to several servers for load sharing Dynamic updates, asynchronous notification of change to a zone, and incremental zone transfers Troubleshooting: using nslookup and dig, reading debugging output, common problems DNS programming using the resolver library and Perl's Net::DNS module ]]> 418 Cricket Liu 1565920104 Dale 4 nonfiction, technical 4.08 1992 DNS and BIND (Nutshell Handbooks)
author: Cricket Liu
name: Dale
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/11
date added: 2023/05/22
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type]]> 44736 The Elements of Graphic Designreveals the secrets of successful graphic design from the unique perspective of the page’s “white space.� With the help of carefully selected examples from art, design, and architecture, the book illuminates the role of each design element and how it can be rendered more effective by including white space in the page architecture. The book also demonstrates how white space can lend “sound� to typography or shift the “weight� of a page. Clear, insightful comments are presented in a dynamic page design, and interactive design elements, thought-provoking captions, and scores of illustrations challenge designers to “think out of the box.�.]]> 160 Alex W. White 1581152507 Dale 4 nonfiction, technical, design
This book is obviously useful for aspiring or professional graphic designers, but I think it would be useful as well for anyone putting together a website, writing a brochure, putting out a newsletter, etc.]]> 3.89 2002 The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
author: Alex W. White
name: Dale
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2011/08/21
date added: 2020/01/17
shelves: nonfiction, technical, design
review:
Besides being a very well-designed book (as one would expect), this is a very practical and down to earth handbook for graphic designers. The emphasis throughout is on the techniques needed to convey a message, as opposed to simply satisfying a designer's desire to be different or to stand out.

This book is obviously useful for aspiring or professional graphic designers, but I think it would be useful as well for anyone putting together a website, writing a brochure, putting out a newsletter, etc.
]]> Introduction to Algorithms 108986 A comprehensive update of the leading algorithms text, with new material on matchings in bipartite graphs, online algorithms, machine learning, and other topics.

Some books on algorithms are rigorous but incomplete; others cover masses of material but lack rigor. Introduction to Algorithms uniquely combines rigor and comprehensiveness. It covers a broad range of algorithms in depth, yet makes their design and analysis accessible to all levels of readers, with self-contained chapters and algorithms in pseudocode. Since the publication of the first edition, Introduction to Algorithms has become the leading algorithms text in universities worldwide as well as the standard reference for professionals. This fourth edition has been updated throughout.

New for the fourth edition
New chapters on matchings in bipartite graphs, online algorithms, and machine learningNew material on topics including solving recurrence equations, hash tables, potential functions, and suffix arrays140 new exercises and 22 new problemsReader feedback-informed improvements to old problemsClearer, more personal, and gender-neutral writing styleColor added to improve visual presentationNotes, bibliography, and index updated to reflect developments in the fieldWebsite with new supplementary material
Warning: Avoid counterfeit copies of Introduction to Algorithms by buying only from reputable retailers. Counterfeit and pirated copies are incomplete and contain errors.]]> 1184 Thomas H. Cormen 0262032937 Dale 5 4.35 1989 Introduction to Algorithms
author: Thomas H. Cormen
name: Dale
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1989
rating: 5
read at: 2012/05/15
date added: 2020/01/17
shelves: nonfiction, technical, favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know]]> 514432 368 Brian Ward 1593270356 Dale 4 nonfiction, technical
The final third of the book covers applications, the desktop, and development tools.

I can see this being useful as a thorough introduction to Linux for someone who plans to spend a lot of time doing Linux-y things; and also as a refresher/tutorial/quasi-reference if you want to do something like setup a samba server or figure out how to get a printer connected.

Overall good clear linear exposition.]]> 4.17 2004 How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know
author: Brian Ward
name: Dale
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2018/05/21
date added: 2018/05/22
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:
After a brief chapter on the most basic of GNU/Linux command-line tools, Ward dives right into Linux internals, starting with a lengthy walk-through of the boot process. followed by in-depth coverage of devices, file systems, and networking.

The final third of the book covers applications, the desktop, and development tools.

I can see this being useful as a thorough introduction to Linux for someone who plans to spend a lot of time doing Linux-y things; and also as a refresher/tutorial/quasi-reference if you want to do something like setup a samba server or figure out how to get a printer connected.

Overall good clear linear exposition.
]]> <![CDATA[Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems]]> 27968891
In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google's Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You'll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient--lessons directly applicable to your organization.

This book is divided into four sections: Introduction--Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practicesPrinciples--Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE)Practices--Understand the theory and practice of an SRE's day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systemsManagement--Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use]]> 550 Betsy Beyer 149192912X Dale 4 nonfiction, technical 4.20 2016 Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
author: Betsy Beyer
name: Dale
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/02/08
date added: 2017/11/08
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd Ed.]]> 17744 This is the second edition of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Recently published, this new edition provides excellent color reproductions of the many graphics of William Playfair, adds color to other images, and includes all the changes and corrections accumulated during 17 printings of the first edition.]]> 197 Edward R. Tufte 0961392142 Dale 5 4.39 1983 The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd Ed.
author: Edward R. Tufte
name: Dale
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2005/01/01
date added: 2014/09/19
shelves: nonfiction, favorites, technical, design
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software]]> 85009
The authors begin by describing what patterns are and how they can help you design object-oriented software. They then go on to systematically name, explain, evaluate, and catalog recurring designs in object-oriented systems. With Design Patterns as your guide, you will learn how these important patterns fit into the software development process, and how you can leverage them to solve your own design problems most efficiently.

Each pattern describes the circumstances in which it is applicable, when it can be applied in view of other design constraints, and the consequences and trade-offs of using the pattern within a larger design. All patterns are compiled from real systems and are based on real-world examples. Each pattern also includes code that demonstrates how it may be implemented in object-oriented programming languages like C++ or Smalltalk.

]]> 416 Erich Gamma 0201633612 Dale 5 4.19 1994 Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
author: Erich Gamma
name: Dale
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2001/01/01
date added: 2014/09/19
shelves: nonfiction, programming, technical, favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools]]> 703102 796 Alfred V. Aho 0201100886 Dale 5 4.09 1986 Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
author: Alfred V. Aho
name: Dale
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at: 1993/01/01
date added: 2014/09/05
shelves: nonfiction, programming, technical, favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It]]> 8553359

Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others?
Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster?
Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software?
Do design patterns actually make better software?
What effect does personality have on pair programming?
What matters more: how far apart people are geographically, or how far apart they are in the org chart?
Contributors include:

Jorge Aranda

Tom Ball

Victor R. Basili

Andrew Begel

Christian Bird

Barry Boehm

Marcelo Cataldo

Steven Clarke

Jason Cohen

Robert DeLine

Madeline Diep

Hakan Erdogmus

Michael Godfrey

Mark Guzdial

Jo E. Hannay

Ahmed E. Hassan

Israel Herraiz

Kim Sebastian Herzig

Cory Kapser

Barbara Kitchenham

Andrew Ko

Lucas Layman

Steve McConnell

Tim Menzies

Gail Murphy

Nachi Nagappan

Thomas J. Ostrand

Dewayne Perry

Marian Petre

Lutz Prechelt

Rahul Premraj

Forrest Shull

Beth Simon

Diomidis Spinellis

Neil Thomas

Walter Tichy

Burak Turhan

Elaine J. Weyuker

Michele A. Whitecraft

Laurie Williams

Wendy M. Williams

Andreas Zeller

Thomas Zimmermann]]> 620 Andy Oram 0596808321 Dale 5 3.45 2010 Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It
author: Andy Oram
name: Dale
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2011/10/13
date added: 2014/09/05
shelves: nonfiction, technical, software
review:
In the interest of full disclosure, I got this book from the library and only read about 20% of it. However, I do plan to purchase a copy, because the articles that I did read were dense with information, and I have every hope that the others will be just as good. This is a set of empirical studies of the practice of software engineering, bolstered with theoretical models in most cases.
]]> The C Programming Language 515601
From the Preface:
We have tried to retain the brevity of the first edition. C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book. We have improved the exposition of critical features, such as pointers, that are central to C programming. We have refined the original examples, and have added new examples in several chapters. For instance, the treatment of complicated declarations is augmented by programs that convert declarations into words and vice versa. As before, all examples have been tested directly from the text, which is in machine-readable form.

As we said in the first preface to the first edition, C "wears well as one's experience with it grows." With a decade more experience, we still feel that way. We hope that this book will help you to learn C and use it well.

]]> 272 Brian W. Kernighan 0131103628 Dale 5 4.44 1978 The C Programming Language
author: Brian W. Kernighan
name: Dale
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at: 1980/01/01
date added: 2014/09/05
shelves: nonfiction, programming, technical, favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet]]> 281818
In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.]]> 304 Katie Hafner 0684832674 Dale 1
If you believe that a history book should be well organized along either thematic or chronological lines, you will not like this book.

If you think that a book about the history of technology should include details about the evolution of that technology, you will not like this book.

If you believe that every non-fiction book deserves a good copy editor who will eliminate pointless discursions, you will not like this book.

Otherwise, there is an excellent chance that you will enjoy this book, as a nightly sedative, if nothing else.]]> 3.92 1996 Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet
author: Katie Hafner
name: Dale
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1996
rating: 1
read at: 2010/08/14
date added: 2013/12/08
shelves: nonfiction, history, technical
review:
If you dislike publications such as People Magazine, you will not like this book.

If you believe that a history book should be well organized along either thematic or chronological lines, you will not like this book.

If you think that a book about the history of technology should include details about the evolution of that technology, you will not like this book.

If you believe that every non-fiction book deserves a good copy editor who will eliminate pointless discursions, you will not like this book.

Otherwise, there is an excellent chance that you will enjoy this book, as a nightly sedative, if nothing else.
]]> <![CDATA[Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...But Probably Didn't (W/ CD)]]> 9483508 CONTENTS:
Chapter 0: What is Electricity Really?
Chapter 1: Three Things They Should Have Taught in Engineering 101
Chapter 2: Basic Theory
Chapter 3: Pieces Parts
Chapter 4: The Real World
Chapter 5: Tools
Chapter 6: Troubleshooting
Chapter 7: Touchy-Feely Stuff
Appendix
(DRAFT)
*Covers the engineering basics that have been either left out of a typical engineer's education or forgotten over time
*No other book offers a wealth of "insider information" in one volume, specifically geared to help new engineers and provide a refresher for those with more experience
*The accompanying CD-ROM contains a reference library of electronics information, with demo simulation software and engineering calculators
]]> 320 Darren Ashby 0080949495 Dale 5 4.10 2005 Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...But Probably Didn't (W/ CD)
author: Darren Ashby
name: Dale
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2012/07/20
date added: 2012/11/06
shelves: engineering, nonfiction, technical
review:
This is by far the best introduction to electrical engineering that I've seen. Very practical and down to earth, engagingly written, and a consistent emphasis on fundamentals.
]]> <![CDATA[Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information]]> 10327296 272 Manuel Lima 1568989369 Dale 3 nonfiction, technical
Lima does at one point present a 'syntax' of network representations - interesting, I suppose, but presented too superficially to be of actual use to the would-be practitioner.

By the latter part of the book I was just flipping pages, eager to get to the end, hoping to see something that would engage my attention. Didn't happen.

Update: after reading the other reviews of this book on goodreads, I want to add that, like them, I did not get any deeper knowledge or insight into the underlying data by looking at the visualizations. Contrast that with the graphics, and the approach to visualization, offered by Tufte, and you can understand my disappointment with this book. Tufte generally shows before and after representations of data, and has clear, consistent principles on which to evaluate or create a visualization. The foremost principle is that of conveying as much information as possible; aesthetics are important, but secondary, and artistic merit barely deserves consideration. But what are we to make of a network graph that allegedly represents millions of nodes and tens of millions of connections? Where is the information content? How does such a graph (represented visually) advance our understanding? I would claim that in nearly all cases, it does not.]]> 3.93 2011 Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information
author: Manuel Lima
name: Dale
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2012/08/02
date added: 2012/08/04
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:
I hate to down-rate this book, because it is very well researched and well written, but I just wasn't able to be as excited about this as I have been with Edward Tufte's books, to which this one is compared by one of the blurb writers. Part of the problem is that this book deals solely with visual representations of networks - an interesting genre, I'm sure, but one that stands more in the realm or art than science unless you drill down pretty far into the details of the network analysis and the techniques used to produce the visualization.

Lima does at one point present a 'syntax' of network representations - interesting, I suppose, but presented too superficially to be of actual use to the would-be practitioner.

By the latter part of the book I was just flipping pages, eager to get to the end, hoping to see something that would engage my attention. Didn't happen.

Update: after reading the other reviews of this book on goodreads, I want to add that, like them, I did not get any deeper knowledge or insight into the underlying data by looking at the visualizations. Contrast that with the graphics, and the approach to visualization, offered by Tufte, and you can understand my disappointment with this book. Tufte generally shows before and after representations of data, and has clear, consistent principles on which to evaluate or create a visualization. The foremost principle is that of conveying as much information as possible; aesthetics are important, but secondary, and artistic merit barely deserves consideration. But what are we to make of a network graph that allegedly represents millions of nodes and tens of millions of connections? Where is the information content? How does such a graph (represented visually) advance our understanding? I would claim that in nearly all cases, it does not.
]]> <![CDATA[The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet]]> 29608
Man has created codes to keep secrets and has broken codes to learn those secrets since the time of the Pharaohs. For 4,000 years, fierce battles have been waged between codemakers and codebreakers, and the story of these battles is civilization's secret history, the hidden account of how wars were won and lost, diplomatic intrigues foiled, business secrets stolen, governments ruined, computers hacked. From the XYZ Affair to the Dreyfus Affair, from the Gallic War to the Persian Gulf, from Druidic runes and the kaballah to outer space, from the Zimmermann telegram to Enigma to the Manhattan Project, codebreaking has shaped the course of human events to an extent beyond any easy reckoning. Once a government monopoly, cryptology today touches everybody. It secures the Internet, keeps e-mail private, maintains the integrity of cash machine transactions, and scrambles TV signals on unpaid-for channels. David Kahn's The Codebreakers takes the measure of what codes and codebreaking have meant in human history in a single comprehensive account, astonishing in its scope and enthralling in its execution. Hailed upon first publication as a book likely to become the definitive work of its kind, The Codebreakers has more than lived up to that it remains unsurpassed. With a brilliant new chapter that makes use of previously classified documents to bring the book thoroughly up to date, and to explore the myriad ways computer codes and their hackers are changing all of our lives, The Codebreakers is the skeleton key to a thousand thrilling true stories of intrigue, mystery, and adventure. It is a masterpiece of the historian's art.]]> 1200 David Kahn 0684831309 Dale 4 4.19 1967 The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet
author: David Kahn
name: Dale
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at: 2003/01/01
date added: 2012/01/22
shelves: history, nonfiction, technical
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)]]> 79766 A Pattern Language is the philosophy that in designing their environments people always rely on certain ‘languages,� which, like the languages we speak, allow them to articulate and communicate an infinite variety of designs within a formal system which gives them coherence.

This book provides a language of this kind. It will enable making a design for almost any kind of building, or any part of the built environment. ‘Patterns,� the units of this language, are answers to design problems: how high should a window sill be?; how many stories should a building have?; how much space in a neighborhood should be devoted to grass and trees?

More than 250 of the patterns in this language are outlined, each consisting of a problem statement, a discussion of the problem with an illustration, and a solution. As the authors say in their introduction, many of the patterns are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that it seems likely that they will be a part of human nature and human action as much in five hundred years as they are today.

A Pattern Language is related to Alexander’s other works in the Center for Environmental Structure series: The Timeless Way of Building (introductory volume) and The Oregon Experiment.]]> 1171 Christopher W. Alexander 0195019199 Dale 5 4.42 1977 A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
author: Christopher W. Alexander
name: Dale
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at: 2005/01/01
date added: 2012/01/22
shelves: nonfiction, technical, favorites, architecture
review:

]]> Beautiful Evidence 17743 Beautiful Evidence is about how seeing turns into showing, how data and evidence turn into explanation. The book identifies excellent and effective methods for showing nearly every kind of information, suggests many new designs (including sparklines), and provides analytical tools for assessing the credibility of evidence presentations (which are seen from both sides: how to produce and how to consume presentations). For alert consumers of presentations, there are chapters on diagnosing evidence corruption and PowerPoint pitches. Beautiful Evidence concludes with two chapters that leave the world of pixel and paper flatland representations - and move onto seeing and thinking in space land, the real-land of three-space and time.]]> 213 Edward R. Tufte 0961392177 Dale 5 technical, science, design 4.15 2006 Beautiful Evidence
author: Edward R. Tufte
name: Dale
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2007/01/01
date added: 2012/01/22
shelves: technical, science, design
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C]]> 351301
"…monumental� fascinating� comprehensive� the definitive work on cryptography for computer programmers�" –Dr. Dobb's Journal

"…easily ranks as one of the most authoritative in its field." —PC Magazine

"…the bible of code hackers." –The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog

This new edition of the cryptography classic provides you with a comprehensive survey of modern cryptography. The book details how programmers and electronic communications professionals can use cryptography—the technique of enciphering and deciphering messages-to maintain the privacy of computer data. It describes dozens of cryptography algorithms, gives practical advice on how to implement them into cryptographic software, and shows how they can be used to solve security problems. Covering the latest developments in practical cryptographic techniques, this new edition shows programmers who design computer applications, networks, and storage systems how they can build security into their software and systems.
What's new in the Second Edition?
* New information on the Clipper Chip, including ways to defeat the key escrow mechanism
* New encryption algorithms, including algorithms from the former Soviet Union and South Africa, and the RC4 stream cipher
* The latest protocols for digital signatures, authentication, secure elections, digital cash, and more
* More detailed information on key management and cryptographic implementations]]> 784 Bruce Schneier 0471128457 Dale 5 4.19 1993 Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C
author: Bruce Schneier
name: Dale
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2001/01/01
date added: 2012/01/22
shelves: nonfiction, programming, technical
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Economic Indicators For Dummies]]> 11956125 416 Michael Griffis 1118037626 Dale 3 nonfiction, technical 3.65 2011 Economic Indicators For Dummies
author: Michael Griffis
name: Dale
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2012/01/02
date added: 2012/01/02
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Smashing CSS: Professional Techniques for Modern Layout]]> 8035458 285 Eric A. Meyer 047068416X Dale 5
Meyer has for many years been consistently at the front of the pack in devising and writing about techniques of (what was long ago called) dynamic html and the creative use of css. This latest of his books is an excellent addition to his work and to any web developer's library.
]]> 3.84 2010 Smashing CSS: Professional Techniques for Modern Layout
author: Eric A. Meyer
name: Dale
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2011/03/24
date added: 2011/03/31
shelves: nonfiction, programming, technical
review:
Multi-column layout with css is hard. About 5 years ago there was a flurry of activity to find robust ways of doing two- and three-column layout, resulting in a number of canonical techniques, and Meyer was one of the large contributors to that effort. This book covers those techniques in detail, and that section alone is worth the price of the book.

Meyer has for many years been consistently at the front of the pack in devising and writing about techniques of (what was long ago called) dynamic html and the creative use of css. This latest of his books is an excellent addition to his work and to any web developer's library.

]]> <![CDATA[Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets]]> 6388318 272 Paul McFedries 0470529695 Dale 4 nonfiction, technical
The book starts with four chapters on the basics of using twitter: signing up, customizing your profile, sending updates, and following others. Then there is a longish chapter on how to use twitter from your mobile phone, covering both SMS and non-SMS interfaces, a nice summary of twitter text commands, twitter mobile applications, and external mobile-friendly sites. Then there's a chapter on twitter searches, including a nice discussion of hashtags, location searches, people search, how to turn searches into favorites, and numerous external twitter search sites.

The book concludes with two chapters on how to extend and improve the twitter experience, including desktop clients, gadgets and widgets, url shorteners and tools for previewing shortened urls, integration with facebook and linked-in, and twitter tracking and trending tools.

The book is well-indexed and has a detailed table of contents, making it easy to use as a reference manual. It also covers tools that you might not know about, suggesting ways of using twitter that are only obvious after you've seen them (much like twitter itself).

I would recommend this book if you plan to use twitter to drive traffic to your site, enhance your social network, or drive your consulting business. And on a more general level, the wealth of tools and uses that has grown up around such a simple concept - a concept so simple that most of us wondered early on why anyone would bother - is instructive at a deep level about the power of social networking. This book serves as a good introduction to that world.]]> 3.24 2009 Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets
author: Paul McFedries
name: Dale
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2009/06/10
date added: 2009/07/04
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:
This is a reference manual for twitter. You might think that a twitter reference manual would be on the list of shortest books ever, but there is now a substantial ecosystem built around twitter, well documented in this guide. As a casual and occasional user of twitter I found this to be a useful guide - assuming I ever decide to be more than a casual user.

The book starts with four chapters on the basics of using twitter: signing up, customizing your profile, sending updates, and following others. Then there is a longish chapter on how to use twitter from your mobile phone, covering both SMS and non-SMS interfaces, a nice summary of twitter text commands, twitter mobile applications, and external mobile-friendly sites. Then there's a chapter on twitter searches, including a nice discussion of hashtags, location searches, people search, how to turn searches into favorites, and numerous external twitter search sites.

The book concludes with two chapters on how to extend and improve the twitter experience, including desktop clients, gadgets and widgets, url shorteners and tools for previewing shortened urls, integration with facebook and linked-in, and twitter tracking and trending tools.

The book is well-indexed and has a detailed table of contents, making it easy to use as a reference manual. It also covers tools that you might not know about, suggesting ways of using twitter that are only obvious after you've seen them (much like twitter itself).

I would recommend this book if you plan to use twitter to drive traffic to your site, enhance your social network, or drive your consulting business. And on a more general level, the wealth of tools and uses that has grown up around such a simple concept - a concept so simple that most of us wondered early on why anyone would bother - is instructive at a deep level about the power of social networking. This book serves as a good introduction to that world.
]]> RESTful Web Services 853961
"RESTful Web Services finally provides a practical roadmap for constructing services that embrace the Web, instead of trying to route around it."-- Adam Trachtenberg, PHP author and EBay Web Services Evangelist

You've built web sites that can be used by humans. But can you also build web sites that are usable by machines? That's where the future lies, and that's what RESTful Web Services shows you how to do. The World Wide Web is the most popular distributed application in history, and Web services and mashups have turned it into a powerful distributed computing platform. But today's web service technologies have lost sight of the simplicity that made the Web successful. They don't work like the Web, and they're missing out on its advantages.

This book puts the "Web" back into web services. It shows how you can connect to the programmable web with the technologies you already use every day. The key is REST, the architectural style that drives the Web. This This is the first book that applies the REST design philosophy to real web services. It sets down the best practices you need to make your design a success, and the techniques you need to turn your design into working code. You can harness the power of the Web for programmable you just have to work with the Web instead of against it. This book shows you how.]]> 419 Leonard Richardson 0596529260 Dale 5
REST (or ReST) stands for 'Representational State Transfer', a term and concept introduced by Roy Fielding nearly a decade ago. The basic idea is that, in current practice, the www consists in large part of interconnected resources where the connections are implemented by the basic HTTP methods of GET and POST, and resource representation is typically HTML, heavily annotated and marked-up, and difficult to work with programmatically. But HTTP, combined with suitably chosen URIs, and combined with more program-oriented representations such as XML and JSON, can provide us the combined advantages of the interconnected web and programmable 'services'.

In the ReST model the HTTP methods (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, and maybe HEAD) are the only methods that would be exposed by a web 'service'. The service exposes URI (universal resource identifiers) for each of the resources provided by the service (a possibly unbounded set of resources), and the methods are applied to those URIs. Each resource can have one or many representations - for example, as XML, JSON, HTML, PDF, etc. There are multiple ways of selecting a representation: for example, adding an 'Accept' header to the HTTP request, or adding some kind of 'qualifier' to the basic URI (for example, a .xml or .pdf suffix).

Representations can (and in the view of the authors, should) provide links to related resources - in fact this ability to link to other resources is the source of much of the power and attractiveness of the ReST model. This ability to identify resources by URI sets ROA apart from SOA. As the authors note, an SOA application normally has few URIs, sometimes only one. So it is literally impossible for the result of a service call to identify the related entities (I can't call them resources) for that call. Instead, the client-side programmer must understand the documentation (possibly by poring over the service's WSDL description) to know how to accomplish any given task. Unless the service designers used great care, the service calls within the SOA application bear little relationship to one another, so understanding some portion of the API provides no great insight into the remainder of the API. The situation is (or can be) different in an ROA application: knowing the set of basic resource types gives immediate knowledge of how to access any particular resource instance. Knowing the relationships between resources (for example, which resources are containers, which resource types are related to other resource types) gives knowledge of how to 'navigate' the application - without the service provider having to document every detail of that navigation.

This is exciting stuff. But there are many challenges. At the low end of the scale, there is the issue that browsers know only the GET and POST methods - not DELETE, PUT, and HEAD. So POST has to be overloaded to provide the functionality of PUT and DELETE. At the top end of the scale, it is not clear in any given case what resources should be exposed and what their representation should be. We need a book entitled 'Resource Oriented Design Patterns' to fill this gap.

In the meantime, RESTful Web Services is a terrific guide to developing web applications.
]]> 3.88 2007 RESTful Web Services
author: Leonard Richardson
name: Dale
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2009/05/01
date added: 2009/05/23
shelves: software, technical, nonfiction
review:
This is both a manifesto for what the authors term 'REST-Oriented Architecture' (ROA), and a technical dive into the mechanics and semantics of REST. It comes as a big breath of fresh air after years of being harangued by the putative benefits of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) with its plethora of web-service standards centered on XML, SOAP, and WSDL, and the many competing and largely incompatible SOA toolkits.

REST (or ReST) stands for 'Representational State Transfer', a term and concept introduced by Roy Fielding nearly a decade ago. The basic idea is that, in current practice, the www consists in large part of interconnected resources where the connections are implemented by the basic HTTP methods of GET and POST, and resource representation is typically HTML, heavily annotated and marked-up, and difficult to work with programmatically. But HTTP, combined with suitably chosen URIs, and combined with more program-oriented representations such as XML and JSON, can provide us the combined advantages of the interconnected web and programmable 'services'.

In the ReST model the HTTP methods (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, and maybe HEAD) are the only methods that would be exposed by a web 'service'. The service exposes URI (universal resource identifiers) for each of the resources provided by the service (a possibly unbounded set of resources), and the methods are applied to those URIs. Each resource can have one or many representations - for example, as XML, JSON, HTML, PDF, etc. There are multiple ways of selecting a representation: for example, adding an 'Accept' header to the HTTP request, or adding some kind of 'qualifier' to the basic URI (for example, a .xml or .pdf suffix).

Representations can (and in the view of the authors, should) provide links to related resources - in fact this ability to link to other resources is the source of much of the power and attractiveness of the ReST model. This ability to identify resources by URI sets ROA apart from SOA. As the authors note, an SOA application normally has few URIs, sometimes only one. So it is literally impossible for the result of a service call to identify the related entities (I can't call them resources) for that call. Instead, the client-side programmer must understand the documentation (possibly by poring over the service's WSDL description) to know how to accomplish any given task. Unless the service designers used great care, the service calls within the SOA application bear little relationship to one another, so understanding some portion of the API provides no great insight into the remainder of the API. The situation is (or can be) different in an ROA application: knowing the set of basic resource types gives immediate knowledge of how to access any particular resource instance. Knowing the relationships between resources (for example, which resources are containers, which resource types are related to other resource types) gives knowledge of how to 'navigate' the application - without the service provider having to document every detail of that navigation.

This is exciting stuff. But there are many challenges. At the low end of the scale, there is the issue that browsers know only the GET and POST methods - not DELETE, PUT, and HEAD. So POST has to be overloaded to provide the functionality of PUT and DELETE. At the top end of the scale, it is not clear in any given case what resources should be exposed and what their representation should be. We need a book entitled 'Resource Oriented Design Patterns' to fill this gap.

In the meantime, RESTful Web Services is a terrific guide to developing web applications.

]]> <![CDATA[Learning Jquery 1.3: Better Interaction Design and Web Developlent With Simple Javascript Techniques]]> 6336092 Approach This book begins with a tutorial to jQuery, followed by an examination of common, real-world client-side problems, and solutions to each of them making it an invaluable resource for answers to all your jQuery questions. Who this book is written for? This book is for web designers who want to create interactive elements for their designs, and for developers who want to create the best user interface for their web applications. Basic JavaScript programming knowledge is required. You will need to know the basics of HTML and CSS, and should be comfortable with the syntax of JavaScript. No knowledge of jQuery is assumed, nor is experience with any other JavaScript libraries required.]]> 421 Jonathan Chaffer 1847196705 Dale 5 software, technical
The api is pretty large, which is why I bought this book. I was hoping to get a better overview than I could get by reading brief tutorials and the reference material. The book definitely delivers, and more.

The book starts with a lengthy tutorial on jQuery selectors. The selectors are based on css selectors, extended with navigational and filtering selectors - for example "#foo:next" will select the node following the node that has id 'foo'. Using css selectors was a brilliant choice, because it more closely models the way we think about web pages.

The book then has chapters on DOM manipulation, AJAX, table handling, forms, UI effects, etc. Each chapter has complete examples (also downloadable from the publisher's site), significant enough to be useful as models for one's own work. The examples work up to a large bookstore example, developed over 3 chapters. The final version of the bookstore shows off most of the features and capabilities of jQuery.

Probably the biggest benefit of this book is that it shows how to use jQuery to cleanly separate content, style, and behavior. Of course, we all think that we do this already, but the examples in this book take that separation to a new level. The html is absolutely clean - no event hooks, relatively few class attributes, and id attribues mostly for identifying large structural elements. The css is minimal and minimally repetitive. The javascript is cleanly separated into style-based and behavior-based code.

I've begun adopting this approach in my own work, and it is already making a big difference. And of course this approach makes it possible for a web designer and a developer to collaborate most effectively.

You will benefit from this book even if you are already somewhat familiar with jQuery. Be sure to get the one reviewed here - there is an older version that covers jQuery 1.2, but there are significant differences betweeen version 1.2 and 1.3.
]]> 3.75 2009 Learning Jquery 1.3: Better Interaction Design and Web Developlent With Simple Javascript Techniques
author: Jonathan Chaffer
name: Dale
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2009/04/17
date added: 2009/04/19
shelves: software, technical
review:
I started using jQuery a few weeks ago and immediately saw that it would become an indispensable part of my toolkit. Javascript development has always been a tedious and aggravating exercise for me, but with jQuery it has become a real joy. The api lets you accomplish big things in a concise way. The online documentation is very good, for both jQuery and jQuery UI, so you don't have to waste a lot of time guessing how to accomplish your tasks. DOM traversal and manipulation is a breeze. There is a wide range of plugins available, and the ones I've tried have been well documented and work well.

The api is pretty large, which is why I bought this book. I was hoping to get a better overview than I could get by reading brief tutorials and the reference material. The book definitely delivers, and more.

The book starts with a lengthy tutorial on jQuery selectors. The selectors are based on css selectors, extended with navigational and filtering selectors - for example "#foo:next" will select the node following the node that has id 'foo'. Using css selectors was a brilliant choice, because it more closely models the way we think about web pages.

The book then has chapters on DOM manipulation, AJAX, table handling, forms, UI effects, etc. Each chapter has complete examples (also downloadable from the publisher's site), significant enough to be useful as models for one's own work. The examples work up to a large bookstore example, developed over 3 chapters. The final version of the bookstore shows off most of the features and capabilities of jQuery.

Probably the biggest benefit of this book is that it shows how to use jQuery to cleanly separate content, style, and behavior. Of course, we all think that we do this already, but the examples in this book take that separation to a new level. The html is absolutely clean - no event hooks, relatively few class attributes, and id attribues mostly for identifying large structural elements. The css is minimal and minimally repetitive. The javascript is cleanly separated into style-based and behavior-based code.

I've begun adopting this approach in my own work, and it is already making a big difference. And of course this approach makes it possible for a web designer and a developer to collaborate most effectively.

You will benefit from this book even if you are already somewhat familiar with jQuery. Be sure to get the one reviewed here - there is an older version that covers jQuery 1.2, but there are significant differences betweeen version 1.2 and 1.3.

]]> <![CDATA[Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World]]> 808814 519 Joe Armstrong 193435600X Dale 4
Erlang takes a little getting used to. It is a functional language, meaning that functions in general are unable to cause side-effects. For example, 'variables' are in one of 2 states: their initial state is 'unbound', their final state is 'has some value that can never change'. Attempting to place a value into a variable that already has a value causes an exception. This aspect of functional programming makes it possible to write multi-threaded/multi-process applications without the problems inherent in multi-threaded applications in non-functional languages.

The basic data types in Erlang are functions, atoms, numbers, lists, tuples, and strings (which are actually lists of integer numbers). List manipulation in Erlang is similar to that in Lisp: lists are generally treated as a head and tail. This is used by the Erlang way of defining functions: functions are defined as a set of pattern-matched expressions with code associated with each expression. For example, a simple accumulator in Erlang might look as follows:

total([H|T:]) -> H + total(T);
total([:]) -> 0;

total([1,10,20,5).
====> 36

This just says that to sum the values in a list, you add the value of the head of the list to the sum of the values in the tail, and that the sum of an empty list is zero.

Functions (lambdas, really, or 'funs' as they are called in Erlang) are first-class objects in Erlang, meaning that they can be members of tuples and lists, can be passed as parameters to functions, and can be returned as a value by functions. So, for example,

Double = fun(X) -> ( 2 * X ) end.

Double(5).
====> 10

Erlang was designed from the beginning to make it easy to write concurrent programs. Erlang process creation is very efficient, and there is no great difference between running such a program as many threads on one box or many processes on multiple boxes. A new process is created with the spawn function, which takes a fun (a lambda) as a paramter. The spawn function returns the process id (pid) of the new process, which may then be used to communicate with that process. The book shows a couple simple examples of distributed programming by way of illustration: a simple name server, and a stripped-down IRC server and client.

The book continues with details on how to interface C and Erlang software, how to communicate over TCP and UDP, the Erlang large-data storage mechanisms (ETS an DETS), and the Erlang database (mnesia).

There is a nice example of implementing map-reduce for disk indexing with Erlang on a multicore system.

Finally, there are a number of appendices including a large reference listing of the standard Erlang modules and functions.]]> 3.96 2007 Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World
author: Joe Armstrong
name: Dale
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2009/04/11
date added: 2009/04/18
shelves: nonfiction, technical, programming
review:
This is the definitive book on Erlang, written by Joe Armstrong, the creator of the Erlang language. The book is clearly written, with lots of small examples, and paced for the beginning Erlang programmer.

Erlang takes a little getting used to. It is a functional language, meaning that functions in general are unable to cause side-effects. For example, 'variables' are in one of 2 states: their initial state is 'unbound', their final state is 'has some value that can never change'. Attempting to place a value into a variable that already has a value causes an exception. This aspect of functional programming makes it possible to write multi-threaded/multi-process applications without the problems inherent in multi-threaded applications in non-functional languages.

The basic data types in Erlang are functions, atoms, numbers, lists, tuples, and strings (which are actually lists of integer numbers). List manipulation in Erlang is similar to that in Lisp: lists are generally treated as a head and tail. This is used by the Erlang way of defining functions: functions are defined as a set of pattern-matched expressions with code associated with each expression. For example, a simple accumulator in Erlang might look as follows:

total([H|T:]) -> H + total(T);
total([:]) -> 0;

total([1,10,20,5).
====> 36

This just says that to sum the values in a list, you add the value of the head of the list to the sum of the values in the tail, and that the sum of an empty list is zero.

Functions (lambdas, really, or 'funs' as they are called in Erlang) are first-class objects in Erlang, meaning that they can be members of tuples and lists, can be passed as parameters to functions, and can be returned as a value by functions. So, for example,

Double = fun(X) -> ( 2 * X ) end.

Double(5).
====> 10

Erlang was designed from the beginning to make it easy to write concurrent programs. Erlang process creation is very efficient, and there is no great difference between running such a program as many threads on one box or many processes on multiple boxes. A new process is created with the spawn function, which takes a fun (a lambda) as a paramter. The spawn function returns the process id (pid) of the new process, which may then be used to communicate with that process. The book shows a couple simple examples of distributed programming by way of illustration: a simple name server, and a stripped-down IRC server and client.

The book continues with details on how to interface C and Erlang software, how to communicate over TCP and UDP, the Erlang large-data storage mechanisms (ETS an DETS), and the Erlang database (mnesia).

There is a nice example of implementing map-reduce for disk indexing with Erlang on a multicore system.

Finally, there are a number of appendices including a large reference listing of the standard Erlang modules and functions.
]]> <![CDATA[It Automation: The Quest for Lights Out]]> 2192030 160 Howie Lyke 0130137863 Dale 1 unix filesystems and Oracle databases are irrelevant to the content of this book.

It was, in short, an utter waste of time - unless you've never gone through the (painfully bureaucratic) process of requirements gathering, 'gap analysis', system design, etc. Or maybe it would be useful to some consultant wanting a way to pad his billable hours - a worthy goal for some, I suppose.

Besides all that, Prentice-Hall should be ashamed of themselves for the production quality of this book. It looks like it was generated from b & w photocopies of color pages.]]> 2.33 1999 It Automation: The Quest for Lights Out
author: Howie Lyke
name: Dale
average rating: 2.33
book published: 1999
rating: 1
read at: 2008/11/26
date added: 2008/11/27
shelves: engineering, nonfiction, technical
review:
This book has garnered two positive reviews at Amazon, but I have no idea why. It purports to be a book about IT automation, but in fact it is nothing more than a generic project management book. It might as well be about retrofitting a ship, remodeling a house, or restoring a classic car. The author occasionally throws in phrases like 'UNIX filesystem' or 'Oracle database', but actual unix filesystems and Oracle databases are irrelevant to the content of this book.

It was, in short, an utter waste of time - unless you've never gone through the (painfully bureaucratic) process of requirements gathering, 'gap analysis', system design, etc. Or maybe it would be useful to some consultant wanting a way to pad his billable hours - a worthy goal for some, I suppose.

Besides all that, Prentice-Hall should be ashamed of themselves for the production quality of this book. It looks like it was generated from b & w photocopies of color pages.
]]> <![CDATA[Google Apps: The Missing Manual]]> 2221443
Google The Missing Manual teaches you how to use three relatively new applications from "Docs and Spreadsheets", which provide many of the same core tools that you find in Word and Excel; and Google Calendar and Gmail, the applications that offer an alternative to Outlook. This book demonstrates how these applications together can ease your ability to collaborate with others, and allow you access to your documents, mail and appointments from any computer at any location.

Of course, as remarkable as these applications are, Google's office suite is definitely a work-in-progress. Navigating what you can and can't do and -- more importantly -- understanding how to do it isn't always easy. And good luck finding enough help online. Google The Missing Manual is the one book you need to get the most out of this increasingly useful part of the Google empire. This Many of you already use Gmail, but do you know its full potential? Do you know how you can increase its power by using Gmail with Doc and Spreadsheets and Google Calendar? You'll find out with Google The Missing Manual . You'll also come to understand why large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble are taking a long, hard look at these applications.]]> 740 Nancy Conner 0596515790 Dale 3 nonfiction, technical Google Office: The Missing Manual has the goal of documenting every feature available in the Google apps suite. It achieves that goal, as far as I can tell, and does so in a readable way. If clarity and completeness were the only criteria I would give this book 5 stars.

But I question the usefulness of a full-blown, menu-by-menu, option-by-option reference manual for Google apps. Most features in the Google apps suites are easy to use and easy to find. Most, but not all. I would have much preferred to see a book that was task-oriented - maybe a recipe / cookbook format. And above all, a book that is much smaller. This book is too large to lay flat, so it can't really be used as a reference manual - a failing of most computer-related books in this age of 1000 page monstrosities vying for space on the shelves at B&N.

I also read Google Apps for Dummies, a much smaller book with less comprehensive coverage, and found it to be more useful. It gives greater emphasis to some of the more difficult tasks and completely skips over obvious menu-driven tasks that you would easily figure out on your own. The very comprehensivenes of The Missing Manual prevents it from glossing over anything, so the most trivial operations are given nearly equal space with the most complex.
]]> 3.67 2008 Google Apps: The Missing Manual
author: Nancy Conner
name: Dale
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2008/09/07
date added: 2008/09/09
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:
Google Office: The Missing Manual has the goal of documenting every feature available in the Google apps suite. It achieves that goal, as far as I can tell, and does so in a readable way. If clarity and completeness were the only criteria I would give this book 5 stars.

But I question the usefulness of a full-blown, menu-by-menu, option-by-option reference manual for Google apps. Most features in the Google apps suites are easy to use and easy to find. Most, but not all. I would have much preferred to see a book that was task-oriented - maybe a recipe / cookbook format. And above all, a book that is much smaller. This book is too large to lay flat, so it can't really be used as a reference manual - a failing of most computer-related books in this age of 1000 page monstrosities vying for space on the shelves at B&N.

I also read Google Apps for Dummies, a much smaller book with less comprehensive coverage, and found it to be more useful. It gives greater emphasis to some of the more difficult tasks and completely skips over obvious menu-driven tasks that you would easily figure out on your own. The very comprehensivenes of The Missing Manual prevents it from glossing over anything, so the most trivial operations are given nearly equal space with the most complex.

]]> Google Apps For Dummies 2384646
Google Apps are poised to shatter the primacy of the current way of working with PCs, saving businesses, schools, government agencies, and individuals big bucks on software, network infrastructure, and administration. "Google Apps For Dummies" is your key to making this revolutionary new approach work for you and your organization.]]> 384 Ryan Teeter 0470189584 Dale 4 nonfiction, technical Google Apps for Dummies is a fairly detailed guide to the suite of Google applications: gmail, chat and google talk, calendar, presentation, docs, notebook, page creator, and the site administrator tools. I read this concurrently with Google Apps: The Missing Manual, and the Dummies book is better. It is more task-focused, more concise, and covers much the same ground as The Missing Manual.

The google apps all have simple, intuitive, and easy to use interfaces, so it is tempting to think that a book like this is not of much value. But because of the sheer number of apps, and the somewhat strange relationship between the google apps suite and individual applications, I think this book might be useful to someone who is setting up google apps for a domain. In any case, it is all too easy to develop a sort of 'target fixation' when using an application, and not notice significant features. This book can help avoid that.
]]> 3.28 2008 Google Apps For Dummies
author: Ryan Teeter
name: Dale
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2008/09/07
date added: 2008/09/08
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:
Google Apps for Dummies is a fairly detailed guide to the suite of Google applications: gmail, chat and google talk, calendar, presentation, docs, notebook, page creator, and the site administrator tools. I read this concurrently with Google Apps: The Missing Manual, and the Dummies book is better. It is more task-focused, more concise, and covers much the same ground as The Missing Manual.

The google apps all have simple, intuitive, and easy to use interfaces, so it is tempting to think that a book like this is not of much value. But because of the sheer number of apps, and the somewhat strange relationship between the google apps suite and individual applications, I think this book might be useful to someone who is setting up google apps for a domain. In any case, it is all too easy to develop a sort of 'target fixation' when using an application, and not notice significant features. This book can help avoid that.

]]> Mobile Internet For Dummies 2330127 296 Michael J. O'Farrell 0470239530 Dale 4 nonfiction, technical Mobile Internet for Dummies is a useful book if you have a smartphone and want to make more effective use of it. It has lots of links to mobile-enabled websites, including links to directories of mobile-enabled sites. There are pointers to downloadable software that enable or enhance instant messaging, email, games, and so on. There's even a fairly large section on creating mobile content, via blogs, picture sites, mobile-enabled content management systems (CMS), and development kits.

Obviously mobile technology changes rapidly, so this is not a book with a long shelf-life. It was published this summer (2008), and seems to be up to date. Hopefully there will be revised editions as technology moves forward.

I use my smartphone all the time: to read bloglines, ap news, reuters news, wikipedia (via the wapedia front-end); email with gmail; google notebook, mobipocket reader, and on and on. But this book pointed me (or at least reminded me) that facebook and twitter both have mobile-enabled interfaces, as does blogger. And I had never heard of eBuddy before - a web-based front-end to all the major IM systems.

So this is a good resource to let you take better advantage of the technology you already own.
]]> 3.86 2008 Mobile Internet For Dummies
author: Michael J. O'Farrell
name: Dale
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2008/08/28
date added: 2008/08/29
shelves: nonfiction, technical
review:
Mobile Internet for Dummies is a useful book if you have a smartphone and want to make more effective use of it. It has lots of links to mobile-enabled websites, including links to directories of mobile-enabled sites. There are pointers to downloadable software that enable or enhance instant messaging, email, games, and so on. There's even a fairly large section on creating mobile content, via blogs, picture sites, mobile-enabled content management systems (CMS), and development kits.

Obviously mobile technology changes rapidly, so this is not a book with a long shelf-life. It was published this summer (2008), and seems to be up to date. Hopefully there will be revised editions as technology moves forward.

I use my smartphone all the time: to read bloglines, ap news, reuters news, wikipedia (via the wapedia front-end); email with gmail; google notebook, mobipocket reader, and on and on. But this book pointed me (or at least reminded me) that facebook and twitter both have mobile-enabled interfaces, as does blogger. And I had never heard of eBuddy before - a web-based front-end to all the major IM systems.

So this is a good resource to let you take better advantage of the technology you already own.

]]> <![CDATA[Visualizing Data: Exploring and Explaining Data with the Processing Environment]]> 2112788
How do the 3.1 billion A, C, G and T letters of the human genome compare to those of a chimp or a mouse? What do the paths that millions of visitors take through a web site look like? With Visualizing Data , you learn how to answer complex questions like these with thoroughly interactive displays. We're not talking about cookie-cutter charts and graphs. This book teaches you how to design entire interfaces around large, complex data sets with the help of a powerful new design and prototyping tool called "Processing".

Used by many researchers and companies to convey specific data in a clear and understandable manner, the Processing beta is available free. With this tool and Visualizing Data as a guide, you'll learn basic visualization principles, how to choose the right kind of display for your purposes, and how to provide interactive features that will bring users to your site over and over. This book teaches The book does not provide ready-made "visualizations" that can be plugged into any data set. Instead, with chapters divided by types of data rather than types of display, you'll learn how each visualization conveys the unique properties of the data it represents -- why the data was collected, what's interesting about it, and what stories it can tell. Visualizing Data teaches you how to answer questions, not simply display information.]]> 382 Ben Fry 0596514557 Dale 5
The process of understanding data begins with a set of numbers and a question. The following steps form a path to the answer:

Acquire: Obtain the data, whether from a file on a disk or a source over a network.

Parse: Provide some structure for the data's meaning, and order it into categories.

Filter: Remove all but the data of interest.

Mine: Apply methods from statistics or data mining as a way to discern patterns or place the data in mathematical context.

Represent: Choose a basic visual model, such as a bar graph, list, or tree.

Refine: Improve the basic representation to make it clearer and more visually engaging.

Interact: Add methods for manipulating the data or controlling what features are visible.

This book achieves 2 goals: 1) it is an outstanding to the Processing programming language, and 2) it shows a wide variety of techniques for the graphical display of data.

Processing is basically a dialect of Java, with an extensive graphics and numerical API, and a very nice little development environment. It is designed for designers and analysts rather than programmers. It integrates easily with Java, and can produce applets to run in browsers, or executables to run on desktop PCs (Mac, PC, Linux). Processing is open source software, and is very easy to learn (easier, I guess, if you already program in Java).

This is an excellent book with a good selection of fully worked examples, and links to numerous resources, including places where you can obtain data (and maps on which to display the data, where applicable).

Highly recommended. ]]> 3.72 2007 Visualizing Data: Exploring and Explaining Data with the Processing Environment
author: Ben Fry
name: Dale
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2008/02/22
date added: 2008/05/31
shelves: nonfiction, programming, software, technical
review:
To quote from the first chapter:

The process of understanding data begins with a set of numbers and a question. The following steps form a path to the answer:

Acquire: Obtain the data, whether from a file on a disk or a source over a network.

Parse: Provide some structure for the data's meaning, and order it into categories.

Filter: Remove all but the data of interest.

Mine: Apply methods from statistics or data mining as a way to discern patterns or place the data in mathematical context.

Represent: Choose a basic visual model, such as a bar graph, list, or tree.

Refine: Improve the basic representation to make it clearer and more visually engaging.

Interact: Add methods for manipulating the data or controlling what features are visible.

This book achieves 2 goals: 1) it is an outstanding to the Processing programming language, and 2) it shows a wide variety of techniques for the graphical display of data.

Processing is basically a dialect of Java, with an extensive graphics and numerical API, and a very nice little development environment. It is designed for designers and analysts rather than programmers. It integrates easily with Java, and can produce applets to run in browsers, or executables to run on desktop PCs (Mac, PC, Linux). Processing is open source software, and is very easy to learn (easier, I guess, if you already program in Java).

This is an excellent book with a good selection of fully worked examples, and links to numerous resources, including places where you can obtain data (and maps on which to display the data, where applicable).

Highly recommended.
]]>