books tagged “tech”

books tagged “tech”

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  • Roman, Steven: Access Database Design and Programming
    Access Database Design and Programming
    by Steven Roman
    ISBN 1565922972 (1-56592-297-2)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Access Database Design and Programming covers a lot of ground quickly but lucidly. Steven Roman begins with a description of general principles of database design, then describes the "relational algebra" that defines the meaning of such operations as unions and joins, introduces SQL syntax, and finally dives into the details of using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) to write Access code. The result is a single book that can teach you all the basics of building database applications in Access. Portions of the book are heavy with logical equations whose effects can be hard to visualize, but Roman's judicious use of sample data makes it much easier to follow the operations being described. [via]

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  • Agile Web Development With Rails
    by Dave Thomas, Mike Clark, James Duncan Davidson, David Heinemeier Hansson, Leon Breedt
    ISBN 0977616630 (0-9776166-3-0)
    Softcover, Pragmatic Bookshelf

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    Book summary:

    The definitive, Jolt-award winning guide to learning and using Rails is now in its Second Edition. Rails is a new approach to web-based application development that enables developers to create full-featured, sophisticated web-based applications using less code and less effort. Now programmers can get the job done right and still leave work on time.

    NEW IN THE SECOND EDITION: The book has been updated to take advantage of all the new Rails 1.2 features. The sample application uses migrations, Ajax, features a REST interface, and illustrates new Rails features. There are new chapters on migrations, active support, active record, and action controller (including the new resources-based routing). The Web 2.0 and Deployment chapters have been completely rewritten to reflect the latest thinking. Now you can learn which environments are best for your style application, and see how Capistrano makes managing your site simple. All the remaining chapters have been extensively updated. Finally, hundreds of comments from readers of the first edition have been incorporated, making this book simply the best available.

    Rails is a full-stack, open source web framework that enables you to create full-featured, sophisticated web-based applications with a twist...you can create a full Rails application using less code than the setup XML you'd need just to configure some other frameworks.

    With this book, you'll learn how to use Rails Active Record to connect business objects and database tables. No more painful object-relational mapping. Just create your business objects and let Rails do the rest. You'll learn how to use the Action Pack framework to route incoming requests and render pages using easy-to-write templates and components. See how to exploit the Rails service frameworks to send emails, talk to web services, and interact dynamically with JavaScript applications running in the browser (the "Ajax" architecture).

    You'll see how easy it is to deploy Rails. You'll be writing applications that work with your favorite database (MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, and more) in no time at all.

    [via]

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  • Agile Web Development With Rails: A Pragmatic Guide
    by Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson, Leon Breedt
    ISBN 097669400X (0-9766940-0-X)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Rails is a full-stack, open source web framework that enables you to create full-featured, sophisticated web-based applications, but with a twist... A full Rails application probably has less total code than the XML you'd need to configure the same application in other frameworks.

    With this book you'll learn how to use ActiveRecord to connect business objects and database tables. No more painful object-relational mapping. Just create your business objects and let Rails do the rest. You'll learn how to use the Action Pack framework to route incoming requests and render pages using easy-to-write templates and components. See how to exploit the Rails service frameworks to send emails, implement web services, and create dynamic, user-centric web-pages using built-in Javascript and Ajax support. There are extensive chapters on testing, deployment, and scaling.

    You'll see how easy it is to install Rails using your web server of choice (such as Apache or lighttpd) or using its own included web server. You'll be writing applications that work with your favorite database (MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, and more) in no time at all.

    You'll create a complete online store application in the extended tutorial section, so you'll see how a full Rails application is developed---iteratively and rapidly.

    Rails strives to honor the Pragmatic Programmer's "DRY Principle" by avoiding the extra work of configuration files and code annotations. You can develop in real-time: make a change, and watch it work immediately.

    Forget XML. Everything in Rails, from templates to control flow to business logic, is written in Ruby, the language of choice for programmers who like to get the job done well (and leave work on time for a change).

    Rails is the framework of choice for the new generation of Web 2.0 developers. Agile Web Development with Rails is the book for that generation, written by Dave Thomas (Pragmatic Programmer and author of Programming Ruby) and David Heinemeier Hansson, who created Rails.

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  • Ambient Findability
    by Peter Morville
    ISBN 0596007655 (0-596-00765-5)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    How do you find your way in an age of information overload? How can you filter streams of complex information to pull out only what you want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to your questions? What does it mean to be "findable" in this day and age? This eye-opening new book examines the convergence of information and connectivity. Written by Peter Morville, author of the groundbreaking Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the book defines our current age as a state of unlimited findability. In other words, anyone can find anything at any time. Complete navigability.

    Morville discusses the Internet, GIS, and other network technologies that are coming together to make unlimited findability possible. He explores how the melding of these innovations impacts society, since Web access is now a standard requirement for successful people and businesses. But before he does that, Morville looks back at the history of wayfinding and human evolution, suggesting that our fear of being lost has driven us to create maps, charts, and now, the mobile Internet.

    The book's central thesis is that information literacy, information architecture, and usability are all critical components of this new world order. Hand in hand with that is the contention that only by planning and designing the best possible software, devices, and Internet, will we be able to maintain this connectivity in the future. Morville's book is highlighted with full color illustrations and rich examples that bring his prose to life.

    Ambient Findability doesn't preach or pretend to know all the answers. Instead, it presents research, stories, and examples in support of its novel ideas. Are we truly at a critical point in our evolution where the quality of our digital networks will dictate how we behave as a species? Is findability indeed the primary key to a successful global marketplace in the 21st century and beyond. Peter Morville takes you on a thought-provoking tour of these memes and more -- ideas that will not only fascinate but will stir your creativity in practical ways that you can apply to your work immediately.

    ""A lively, enjoyable and informative tour of a topic that's only going to become more important.""

    --David Weinberger, Author, "Small Pieces Loosely Joined" and "The Cluetrain Manifesto"

    ""I envy the young scholar who finds this inventive book, by whatever strange means are necessary. The future isn't just unwritten--it's unsearched.""

    --Bruce Sterling, Writer, Futurist, and Co-Founder, The Electronic Frontier Foundation

    ""Search engine marketing is the hottest thing in Internet business, and deservedly so. Ambient Findability puts SEM into a broader context and provides deeper insights into human behavior. This book will help you grow your online business in a world where being found is not at all certain.""

    --Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., Author, "Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity"

    ""Information that's hard to find will remain information that's hardly found--from one of the fathers of the discipline of information architecture, and one of its most experienced practitioners, come penetrating observations on why findability is elusive and how the act of seeking changes us.""

    --Steve Papa, Founder and Chairman, Endeca

    ""Whether it's a fact or a figure, a person or a place, Peter Morville knows how to make it findable. Morville explores the possibilities of a world where everything can always be found--and the challenges in getting there--in this wide-ranging, thought-provoking book.""

    --Jesse James Garrett, Author, "The Elements of User Experience"

    ""It is easy to assume that current searching of the World Wide Web is the last word in finding and using information. Peter Morville shows us that search engines are just the beginning. Skillfully weaving together information science research with his own extensive experience, he develops for the reader a feeling for the near future when information is truly findable all around us. There are immense implications, and Morville's lively and humorous writing brings them home.""

    --Marcia J. Bates, Ph.D., University of California Los Angeles

    ""I've always known that Peter Morville was smart. After reading Ambient Findability, I now know he's (as we say in Boston) wicked smart. This is a timely book that will have lasting effects on how we create our future."

    --Jared Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

    ""In Ambient Findability, Peter Morville has put his mind and keyboard on the pulse of the electronic noosphere. With tangible examples and lively writing, he lays out the challenges and wonders of finding our way in cyberspace, and explains the mutually dependent evolution of our changing world and selves. This is a must read for everyone and a practical guide for designers.""

    --Gary Marchionini, Ph.D., University of North Carolina

    ""Find this book! Anyone interested in makinginformation easier to find, or understanding how finding and being found is changing, will find this thoroughly researched, engagingly written, literate, insightful and very, very cool book well worth their time. Myriad examples from rich and varied domains and a valuable idea on nearly every page. Fun to read, too!"

    --Joseph Janes, Ph.D., Founder, Internet Public Library

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  • Apache: The Definitive Guide
    by Peter Laurie, Ben Laurie
    ISBN 1565922506 (1-56592-250-6)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Now in it's second edition, Apache: The Definitive Guide is a revised and improved tome which has been expanded to cover the Win32 and Unix flavours of the Apache server. Counting a member of the Apache development team as one of its authors, the new edition deals with server versions up to (and including) 1.3 giving detail on how to get hold of the source code (not necessary for the Win32 variant), compile it and latterly configure for authorisation and security.

    However, getting the server up and running is one thing, administering it is quite another. Happily, the authors provide many pages of detail on subjects including setting up virtual servers, dealing with MIME types, proxies, server- side includes and more in a way which is informative, yet not too heavy on the brain. It has to be said that there's an overriding feeling the book leans towards the UNIX side of things but this in no way impedes the usefulness of the book--a big improvement on the first edition. Just for good measure a reference card containing all the information you'll ever need to know is included, together with a bonus CD containing all of the files necessary to mount Apache 1.3.3 on a Windows of Unix machine. All in all, pretty fine value for web admins and the web curious. [via]

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  • Applescript: The Definitive Guide
    by Matt Neuburg
    ISBN 0596102119 (0-596-10211-9)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Mac users everywhere--even those who know nothing about programming--are discovering the value of the latest version of AppleScript, Apple's vastly improved scripting language for Mac OS X Tiger. And with this new edition of the top-selling AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, anyone, regardless of your level of experience, can learn to use AppleScript to make your Mac time more efficient and more enjoyable by automating repetitive tasks, customizing applications, and even controlling complex workflows.

    Fully revised and updated--and with more and better examples than ever--AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition explores AppleScript 1.10 from the ground up. You will learn how AppleScript works and how to use it in a variety of contexts: in everyday scripts to process automation, in CGI scripts for developing applications in Cocoa, or in combination with other scripting languages like Perl and Ruby.

    AppleScript has shipped with every Mac since System 7 in 1991, and its ease of use and English-friendly dialect are highly appealing to most Mac fans. Novices, developers, and everyone in between who wants to know how, where, and why to use AppleScript will find AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition to be the most complete source on the subject available. It's as perfect for beginners who want to write their first script as it is for experienced users who need a definitive reference close at hand.

    AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition begins with a relevant and useful AppleScript overview and then gets quickly to the language itself; when you have a good handle on that, you get to see AppleScript in action, and learn how to put it into action for you. An entirely new chapter shows developers how to make your Mac applications scriptable, and how to give them that Mac OS X look and feel with AppleScript Studio. Thorough appendixes deliver additional tools and resources you won't find anywhere else. Reviewed and approved by Apple, this indispensable guide carries the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) logo.

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  • Applescript the Definitive Guide: The Definitive Guide
    by Beuburg
    ISBN 0596005571 (0-596-00557-1)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    If you want to know all about AppleScript--the how, where, and why of using it--dig into AppleScript: The Definitive Guide. It doesn't make the mistake that other books do: it isn't about scripting this or that particular application, and it doesn't assume that learning AppleScript is easy or obvious. Instead, the book teaches and documents the language in a clear and rigorous manner, just as you'd expect with any programming or scripting language.

    AppleScript is a dynamic, object-oriented scripting system that allows Mac users--even novices who know nothing about programming--to directly control Macintosh applications, including the Mac OS itself. You can write scripts to automate repetitive tasks, customize applications, and even control complex workflows.

    AppleScript has always been useful, but with Mac OS X it's even more so. Nearly every application that comes with Mac OS X is scriptable. Even non-scriptable applications can often be driven with AppleScript, thanks to the new Accessibility API and GUI Scripting technologies. And now AppleScripters can put a true Aqua interface around their scripts! There's never been a more exciting time for AppleScript users.

    AppleScript: The Definitive Guide explores and teaches the language from the ground up. If you're a beginner and want to learn how to write your first script or just understand what the excitement is all about, you'll be able to do so after reading this book.

    AppleScript: The Definitive Guide is the quintessential guide to this important Mac tool. Regardless of their level of experience, AppleScripters everywhere will turn to this book again and again.

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  • Code Complete
    by Steve McConnell
    ISBN 0735619670 (0-7356-1967-0)
    Softcover, Microsoft Pr

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    Book summary:

    Widely considered one of the best practical guides to programming, Steve McConnell's original CODE COMPLETE has been helping developers write better software for more than a decade. Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices-and hundreds of new code samples-illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking-and help you build the highest quality code.

    Discover the timeless techniques and strategies that help you:

    • Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity
    • Reap the benefits of collaborative development
    • Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors
    • Exploit opportunities to refactor-or evolve-code, and do it safely
    • Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project
    • Debug problems quickly and effectively
    • Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly
    • Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project
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  • Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace
    by Lawrence Lessig
    ISBN 0465039138 (0-465-03913-8)
    Softcover, Perseus Books Group

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    Book summary:

    "We, the Net People, in order to form a more perfect Transfer Protocol..." might be recited in future fifth-grade history classes, says attorney Lawrence Lessig. He turns the now-traditional view of the Internet as an uncontrollable, organic entity on its head, and explores the architecture and social systems that are changing every day and taming the frontier. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace is his well-reasoned, undeniably cogent series of arguments for guiding the still-evolving regulatory processes, to ensure that we don't find ourselves stuck with a system that we find objectionable. As the former Communist-bloc countries found, a constitution is still one of our best guarantees against the dark side of chaos; and Lessig promotes a kind of document that accepts the inevitable regulatory authority of both government and commerce, while constraining them within values that we hold by consensus.

    Lessig holds that those who shriek the loudest at the thought of interference in cyberdoings, especially at the hands of the government, are blind to the ever-increasing regulation of the Net (admittedly, without badges or guns) by businesses that find little opposition to their schemes from consumers, competitors, or cops. The Internet will be regulated, he says, and our window of opportunity to influence the design of those regulations narrows each day. How will we make the decisions that the Framers of our paper-and-ink Constitution couldn't foresee, much less resolve? Lessig proclaims that many of us will have to wake up fast and get to work before we lose the chance to draft a networked Bill of Rights. --Rob Lightner [via]

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  • Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
    by Steve McConnell
    ISBN 1556154844 (1-55615-484-4)
    Softcover, Microsoft Pr

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    Book summary:

    Believed by many of our customers to be the best practical guide to writing commercial software, and Highly Recommended. [via]

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  • Cryptonomicon
    by Neal Stephenson
    ISBN 0380788624 (0-380-78862-4)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series--for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.

    Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."

    All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

    Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). --Therese Littleton [via]

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  • Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
    by Ralph Johnson, Erich Gamma, John Vlissides, Richard Helm
    ISBN 0201633612 (0-201-63361-2)
    Hardcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    Published in 1995, design patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software has elicited a great deal of praise from the press and readers. The 23 patterns contained in the book have become an essential resource for anyone developing reusable software designs. In response to a great number of requests from readers of the book and from the object-oriented community as a whole, these designs patterns, along with the entire text of the book, are being made available on cd. This electronic version will enable students to install the patterns directly onto a computer and create an architecture for using and building reusable components. Produced in html format, the cd is heavily cross-referenced with numerous links to the online text [via]

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  • Designing With Web Standards
    by Jeffrey Zeldman
    ISBN 0321385551 (0-321-38555-1)
    Softcover, Peachpit Pr

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    Book summary:

    You code. And code. And code. You build only to rebuild. You focus on making your site compatible with almost every browser or wireless device ever put out there. Then along comes a new device or a new browser, and you start all over again.

    You can get off the merry-go-round.

    It's time to stop living in the past and get away from the days of spaghetti code, insanely nested table layouts, tags, and other redundancies that double and triple the bandwidth of even the simplest sites. Instead, it's time for forward compatibility.

    Isn't it high time you started designing with web standards?

    Standards aren't about leaving users behind or adhering to inflexible rules. Standards are about building sophisticated, beautiful sites that will work as well tomorrow as they do today. You can't afford to design tomorrow's sites with yesterday's piecemeal methods.

    Jeffrey teaches you to:
    • Slash design, development, and quality assurance costs (or do great work in spite of constrained budgets)
    • Deliver superb design and sophisticated functionality without worrying about browser incompatibilities
    • Set up your site to work as well five years from now as it does today
    • Redesign in hours instead of days or weeks
    • Welcome new visitors and make your content more visible to search engines
    • Stay on the right side of accessibility laws and guidelines
    • Support wireless and PDA users without the hassle and expense of multiple versions
    • Improve user experience with faster load times and fewer compatibility headaches
    • Separate presentation from structure and behavior, facilitating advanced publishing workflows

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  • Krug, Steve: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach To The Web Usability
    Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
    by Steve Krug
    ISBN 0321344758 (0-321-34475-8)
    Softcover, Macmillan Computer Pub

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    Book summary:

    Usability design is one of the most important though often least attractive tasks for a Web developer. In Don't Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humour and excellent to-the-point examples.

    The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques and examples presented within it revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book's assumptions. For example, "We don't read pages--we scan them" and, "We don't figure out how things work--we muddle through". Getting to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces top-notch sites.

    Using an attractive mix of full-colour screen shots, cute cartoons and diagrams, and informative sidebars, the book keeps your attention and drives home some crucial points. Much of the content is devoted to proper use of conventions and content layout, and the "before and after" examples are superb. Topics such as the wise use of rollovers and usability testing are covered using a consistently practical approach.

    This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert's ability to judge Web design. You'll never form a first impression of a site in the same way again. --Stephen W Plain [via]

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  • Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference
    by Danny Goodman
    ISBN 1565924940 (1-56592-494-0)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Packed with information on the latest web specifications and browser features, this new edition is your ultimate one-stop resource for html, xhtml, css, document object model (dom), and javascript development. Here is the comprehensive reference for designers of rich internet applications who need to operate in all modern browsers, including internet explorer 7, firefox 2, safari, and opera.with this book, you can instantly see browser support for the latest standards-based technologies, including css level 3, dom level 3, web forms 2.0, xmlhttprequest for ajax applications, javascript 1.7, and many more. This new edition: provides at-a-glance references for the tags, attributes, objects, properties, methods, and events of html, xhtml, css, dom, and core javascript. You can quickly look up a particular feature or language term to see if it is available in desired browser brands and versions. Includes handy cross referencing that lets you look up an attribute (or object property, method, or event type) to find all the items that recognize it, including interrelated html tags, style properties, and document object model methods, properties, and events. Offers appendices where you can quickly locate values useful in html authoring and scripting. You'll find coverage of commands used across three browsers for user-editable content. Includes a glossary that gives you quick explanations of some of the new and potentially confusing terminology of dhtml. Dynamic html: the definitive reference speeds the way to adding sophisticated features to your web pages. Indispensable, complete, and succinct, this bestselling guide is the must-have compendium for all web developers involved in creating dynamic web content [via]

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  • Dynamics of Software Development
    by Jim McCarthy
    ISBN 1556158238 (1-55615-823-8)
    Softcover, Microsoft Pr

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    Book summary:

    Shipping great software can be done, insists McCarthy, and charts, in five sections, the progress from initial design to successful product. McCarthy is a software industry veteran and the director of the Microsoft Visual C++ development group.
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  • The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web
    by Jesse James Garrett
    ISBN 0735712026 (0-7357-1202-6)
    Softcover, New Riders Pub

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    Book summary:

    Smart organizations recognize that Web design is more than just creating clean code and sharp graphics. A site that really works fulfills your strategic objectives while meeting the needs of your users. Even the best content and the most sophisticated technology won't help you balance those goals without a cohesive, consistent user experience to support it.

    But creating the user experience can seem overwhelmingly complex. With so many issues involved-usability, brand identity, information architecture, interaction design-it can seem as if the only way to build a successful site is to spend a fortune on specialists who understand all the details.

    The Elements of User Experience cuts through the complexity of user-centered design for the Web with clear explanations and vivid illustrations that focus on ideas rather than tools or techniques. Jesse James Garrett gives readers the big picture of Web user experience development, from strategy and requirements to information architecture and visual design. This accessible introduction helps any Web development team, large or small, to create a successful user experience.

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  • Essential System Administration
    by Aeleen Frisch
    ISBN 1565921275 (1-56592-127-5)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Essential System Administration,3rd Edition is the definitive guide for Unix system administration, covering all the fundamental and essential tasks required to run such divergent Unix systems as AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Tru64 and more. Essential System Administration provides a clear, concise, practical guide to the real-world issues that anyone responsible for a Unix system faces daily.

    The new edition of this indispensable reference has been fully updated for all the latest operating systems. Even more importantly, it has been extensively revised and expanded to consider the current system administrative topics that administrators need most. Essential System Administration,3rd Edition covers: DHCP, USB devices, the latest automation tools, SNMP and network management, LDAP, PAM, and recent security tools and techniques.

    Essential System Administration is comprehensive. But what has made this book the guide system administrators turn to over and over again is not just the sheer volume of valuable information it provides, but the clear, useful way the information is presented. It discusses the underlying higher-level concepts, but it also provides the details of the procedures needed to carry them out. It is not organized around the features of the Unix operating system, but around the various facets of a system administrator's job. It describes all the usual administrative tools that Unix provides, but it also shows how to use them intelligently and efficiently.

    Whether you use a standalone Unix system, routinely provide administrative support for a larger shared system, or just want an understanding of basic administrative functions, Essential System Administration is for you. This comprehensive and invaluable book combines the author's years of practical experience with technical expertise to help you manage Unix systems as productively and painlessly as possible.

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  • Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    by Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres, Erich Gamma
    ISBN 0321278658 (0-321-27865-8)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    In this second edition of Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck organizes and presents five years worth of experiences, growth, and change revolving around XP. If you are seriously interested in understanding how you and your team can start down the path of improvement with XP, you must read this book.

    Francesco Cirillo, Chief Executive Officer, XPLabs S.R.L.
    The first edition of this book told us what XP wasit changed the way many of us think about software development. This second edition takes it farther and gives us a lot more of the why of XP, the motivations and the principles behind the practices. This is great stuff. Armed with the what and the why, we can now all set out to confidently work on the how: how to run our projects better, and how to get agile techniques adopted in our organizations.

    Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers LLC
    This book is dynamite! It was revolutionary when it first appeared a few years ago, and this new edition is equally profound. For those who insist on cookbook checklists, theres an excellent chapter on primary practices, but I urge you to begin by truly contemplating the meaning of the opening sentence in the first chapter of Kent Becks book: XP is about social change. You should do whatever it takes to ensure that every IT professional and every IT managerall the way up to the CIOhas a copy of Extreme Programming Explained on his or her desk.

    Ed Yourdon, author and consultant
    XP is a powerful set of concepts for simplifying the process of software design, development, and testing. It is about minimalism and incrementalism, which are especially useful principles when tackling complex problems that require a balance of creativity and discipline.

    Michael A. Cusumano, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of The Business of Software
    Extreme Programming Explained is the work of a talented and passionate craftsman. Kent Beck has brought together a compelling collection of ideas about programming and management that deserves your full attention. My only beef is that our profession has gotten to a point where such common-sense ideas are labeled extreme....

    Lou Mazzucchelli, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council
    If your organization is ready for a change in the way it develops software, theres the slow incremental approach, fixing things one by one, or the fast track, jumping feet first into Extreme Programming. Do not be frightened by the name, it is not that extreme at all. It is mostly good old recipes and common sense, nicely integrated together, getting rid of all the fat that has accumulated over the years.

    Philippe Kruchten, UBC, Vancouver, British Columbia
    Sometimes revolutionaries get left behind as the movement they started takes on a life of its own. In this book, Kent Beck shows that he remains ahead of the curve, leading XP to its next level. Incorporating five years of feedback, this book takes a fresh look at what it takes to develop better software in less time and for less money. There are no silver bullets here, just a set of practical principles that, when used wisely, can lead to dramatic improvements in software development productivity.

    Mary Poppendieck, author of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit
    Kent Beck has revised his classic book based on five more years of applying and teaching XP. He shows how the path to XP is both easy and hard: It can be started with fewer practices, and yet it challenges teams to go farther than ever.

    William Wake, independent consultant
    With new insights, wisdom from experience, and clearer explanations of the art of Extreme Programming, this edition of Becks classic will help many realize the dream of outstanding software development.

    Joshua Kerievsky, author of Refactoring to Patterns and Founder, Industrial Logic, Inc.
    XP has changed the way our industry thinks about software development. Its brilliant simplicity, focused execution, and insistence on fact-based planning over speculation have set a new standard for software delivery.

    David Trowbridge, Architect, Microsoft Corporation

    Accountability. Transparency. Responsibility. These are not words that are often applied to software development.

    In this completely revised introduction to Extreme Programming (XP), Kent Beck describes how to improve your software development by integrating these highly desirable concepts into your daily development process.

    The first edition of Extreme Programming Explained is a classic. It won awards for its then-radical ideas for improving small-team development, such as having developers write automated tests for their own code and having the whole team plan weekly. Much has changed in five years. This completely rewritten second edition expands the scope of XP to teams of any size by suggesting a program of continuous improvement based on:

    • Five core values consistent with excellence in software development
    • Eleven principles for putting those values into action
    • Thirteen primary and eleven corollary practices to help you push development past its current business and technical limitations

    Whether you have a small team that is already closely aligned with your customers or a large team in a gigantic or multinational organization, you will find in these pages a wealth of ideas to challenge, inspire, and encourage you and your team members to substantially improve your software development.

    You will discover how to:

    • Involve the whole teamXP style
    • Increase technical collaboration through pair programming and continuous integration
    • Reduce defects through developer testing
    • Align business and technical decisions through weekly and quarterly planning
    • Improve teamwork by setting up an informative, shared workspace

    You will also find many other concrete ideas for improvement, all based on a philosophy that emphasizes simultaneously increasing the humanity and effectiveness of software development.

    Every team can improve. Every team can begin improving today. Improvement is possiblebeyond what we can currently imagine. Extreme Programming Explained, Second Edition, offers ideas to fuel your improvement for years to come.



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  • Google Hacks
    by Rael Dornfest
    ISBN 0596008570 (0-596-00857-0)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Everyone loves Google, and it's the first place many people turn to locate information on the Internet. There's a big gap, though, between knowing that you can use Google to get advance information on your blind date and having a handle on the considerable roster of fact-finding tools that the site makes available. Google Hacks reveals--and documents in considerable detail--a large collection of Google capabilities that many readers won't have even been aware of. Want to find the best price on a pair of leg warmers? Try the Froogle price-searcher that's hidden within the Google site. Interested in finding weblog commentary about a particular subject? Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest call your attention to the special Google syntaxes for that purpose. This book makes it clear that there's lots more to the Google site than typing in a few keywords and trusting the search engine to yield useful results.

    If you're a programmer--or even just familiar with a HTML or a scripting language--Google opens up even further. A large part of Google Hacks concerns itself with the Google API (the collection of capabilities that Google exposes for use by software) and other programmers' resources. For example, the authors include a simple Perl application that queries the Google engine with terms specified by the user. They also document XooMLe, which delivers Google results in XML form. In brief, this is the best compendium of Google's lesser-known capabilities available anywhere, including the Google site itself. --David Wall

    Topics covered: How to get the most from the Google search engine by using its Web-accessible features (including product searches, image searches, news searches, and newsgroup searches) and the large collection of desktop-resident toolbars available, as well as its advanced search syntax. Other sections have to do with programming with the Google API and simple "scrapes" of results pages, while further coverage addresses how to get your Web page to feature prominently in Google keyword searches. [via]

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  • Google Hacks
    by Tara Calishain, Paul Bausch, Rael Dornfest
    ISBN 0596527063 (0-596-52706-3)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Everyone loves Google, and it's the first place many people turn to locate information on the Internet. There's a big gap, though, between knowing that you can use Google to get advance information on your blind date and having a handle on the considerable roster of fact-finding tools that the site makes available. Google Hacks reveals--and documents in considerable detail--a large collection of Google capabilities that many readers won't have even been aware of. Want to find the best price on a pair of leg warmers? Try the Froogle price-searcher that's hidden within the Google site. Interested in finding weblog commentary about a particular subject? Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest call your attention to the special Google syntaxes for that purpose. This book makes it clear that there's lots more to the Google site than typing in a few keywords and trusting the search engine to yield useful results.

    If you're a programmer--or even just familiar with a HTML or a scripting language--Google opens up even further. A large part of Google Hacks concerns itself with the Google API (the collection of capabilities that Google exposes for use by software) and other programmers' resources. For example, the authors include a simple Perl application that queries the Google engine with terms specified by the user. They also document XooMLe, which delivers Google results in XML form. In brief, this is the best compendium of Google's lesser-known capabilities available anywhere, including the Google site itself. --David Wall

    Topics covered: How to get the most from the Google search engine by using its Web-accessible features (including product searches, image searches, news searches, and newsgroup searches) and the large collection of desktop-resident toolbars available, as well as its advanced search syntax. Other sections have to do with programming with the Google API and simple "scrapes" of results pages, while further coverage addresses how to get your Web page to feature prominently in Google keyword searches. [via]

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  • Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools
    by Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest
    ISBN 0596004478 (0-596-00447-8)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Everyone loves Google, and it's the first place many people turn to locate information on the Internet. There's a big gap, though, between knowing that you can use Google to get advance information on your blind date and having a handle on the considerable roster of fact-finding tools that the site makes available. Google Hacks reveals--and documents in considerable detail--a large collection of Google capabilities that many readers won't have even been aware of. Want to find the best price on a pair of leg warmers? Try the Froogle price-searcher that's hidden within the Google site. Interested in finding weblog commentary about a particular subject? Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest call your attention to the special Google syntaxes for that purpose. This book makes it clear that there's lots more to the Google site than typing in a few keywords and trusting the search engine to yield useful results.

    If you're a programmer--or even just familiar with a HTML or a scripting language--Google opens up even further. A large part of Google Hacks concerns itself with the Google API (the collection of capabilities that Google exposes for use by software) and other programmers' resources. For example, the authors include a simple Perl application that queries the Google engine with terms specified by the user. They also document XooMLe, which delivers Google results in XML form. In brief, this is the best compendium of Google's lesser-known capabilities available anywhere, including the Google site itself. --David Wall

    Topics covered: How to get the most from the Google search engine by using its Web-accessible features (including product searches, image searches, news searches, and newsgroup searches) and the large collection of desktop-resident toolbars available, as well as its advanced search syntax. Other sections have to do with programming with the Google API and simple "scrapes" of results pages, while further coverage addresses how to get your Web page to feature prominently in Google keyword searches. [via]

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  • Fullam, Scott: Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks
    Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks
    by Scott Fullam
    ISBN 0596003145 (0-596-00314-5)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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  • Html and Xhtml: The Definitive Guide
    by Bill Kennedy, Chuck Musciano
    ISBN 0596527322 (0-596-52732-2)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    HTML is a familiar FLA (four letter acronym) but what about XHTML? Is it merely a typographical error or simply XML by another name? The readable preface to this book puts us right and there is more detail in Chapter 1 which is also an interesting potted history of the web and web technologies.

    HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is for controlling layout and specifying hypertext links for documents viewed with a browser. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) controls its standardisation. XML (Extensible Markup Language), also defined by the W3C, is a standard that allows structured data to be presented in a standard way that it can be understood by many different technologies, for example, relational database engines and web browsers. Use of XML for the exchange of data between businesses on the Internet is increasing rapidly. Now, finally, comes XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language), which is HTML reformulated to bring it into line with the XML standard.

    The authors try to instil good habits and style considerations, as well as an appreciation of kumquats (a recurrent theme in the examples). They revile use of the blink tag extension that causes text to oscillate between two colour states and blink, constantly, irritatingly and advocate visiting a wide range of Web sites to learn what works and what doesn't.

    The comprehensive coverage of the topic is divided into chapters like Text Basics, Formatted Lists, Forms, Frames and Executable Content. HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide is a feature-driven guide to what the languages can do rather than a guide to producing a finished item, but it should help a beginner to make good progress nevertheless, and is written in an approachable style. --Mark Whitehorn [via]

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  • Html Pocket Reference
    by Jennifer Niederst
    ISBN 1565925793 (1-56592-579-3)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    In this completely revised and updated pocket reference, Jennifer Niederst, the author of the best-selling Web Design in a Nutshell, delivers a complete guide to every HTML tag. As with O'Reilly's other pocket references, this handy book offers the bare essentials in a small, concise format that you can carry anywhere for quick reference. This guide will literally fit into your back pocket.

    Each entry in the book is devoted to the description of a single HTML tag, its standard usage, information on the tag's attributes, browser support (for Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Opera), and support for WebTV. Niederst puts the tags in context, indicating which ones are grouped together. She also offers bare-bones examples of how standard web page elements are constructed.

    All the tag-by-tag descriptions in this new edition have been brought up to date with the current HTML specification (4.01), and the book includes useful charts of character entities and decimal-to-hexadecimal conversions.

    The HTML Pocket Reference, second edition is an indispensable reference for any serious web designer, author, or programmer.

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  • Simon, William L.: Icon: Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business
    Icon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business
    by William L. Simon, Jeffrey S. Young
    ISBN 0471787841 (0-471-78784-1)
    Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc

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    Book summary:

    iCon takes a look at the most astounding figure in a business era noted for its mavericks, oddballs, and iconoclasts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Jeffrey Young and William Simon provide new perspectives on the legendary creation of Apple, detail Jobss meteoric rise, and the devastating plunge that left him not only out of Apple, but out of the computer-making business entirely. This unflinching and completely unauthorized portrait reveals both sides of Jobss role in the remarkable rise of the Pixar animation studio, also re-creates the acrimony between Jobs and Disneys Michael Eisner, and examines Jobss dramatic his rise from the ashes with his recapture of Apple. The authors examine the takeover and Jobss reinvention of the company with the popular iMac and his transformation of the industry with the revolutionary iPod. iCon is must reading for anyone who wants to understand how the modern digital age has been formed, shaped, and refined by the most influential figure of the agea master of three industries: movies, music, and computers. [via]

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  • In the Beginning...Was the Command Line
    by Neal Stephenson
    ISBN 0380815931 (0-380-81593-1)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Neal Stephenson, author of the sprawling and engaging Cryptonomicon, has written a manifesto that could be spoken by a character from that brilliant book. Primarily, In the Beginning ... Was the Command Line discusses the past and future of personal computer operating systems. "It is the fate of manufactured goods to slowly and gently depreciate as they get old," he writes, "but it is the fate of operating systems to become free." While others in the computer industry express similarly dogmatic statements, Stephenson charms the reader into his way of thinking, providing anecdotes and examples that turn the pages for you.

    Stephenson is a techie, and he's writing for an audience of coders and hackers in Command Line. The idea for this essay began online, when a shortened version of it was posted on Slashdot.org. The book still holds some marks of an e-mail flame gone awry, and some tangents should have been edited to hone his formidable arguments. But unlike similar writers who also discuss technical topics, he doesn't write to exclude; readers who appreciate computing history (like Dealers of Lightning or Fire in the Valley) can easily step into this book.

    Stephenson tackles many myths about industry giants in this volume, specifically Apple and Microsoft. By now, every newspaper reader has heard of Microsoft's overbearing business practices, but Stephenson cuts to the heart of new issues for the software giant with a finely sharpened steel blade. Apple fares only a little better as Stephenson (a former Mac user himself) highlights the early steps the company took to prepare for a monopoly within the computer market--and its surprise when this didn't materialize. Linux culture gets a thorough--but fair--skewering, and the strengths of BeOS are touted (although no operating system is nearly close enough to perfection in Stephenson's eyes).

    As for the rest of us, who have gladly traded free will and an intellectual understanding of computers for a clutter-free, graphically pleasing interface, Stephenson has thoughts to offer as well. He fully understands the limits nonprogrammers feel in the face of technology (an example being the "blinking 12" problem when your VCR resets itself). Even so, within Command Line he convincingly encourages us as a society to examine the metaphors of technology--simplifications that aren't really much simpler--that we greedily accept. --Jennifer Buckendorff [via]

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  • Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
    by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville
    ISBN 1600330150 (1-60033-015-0)
    Hardcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Today's web sites have moved far beyond "brochureware." They are larger and more complex, have great strategic value to their sponsors, and their users are busier and less forgiving. Designers, information architects, and web site managers are required to juggle vast amounts of information, frequent changes, new technologies, and sometimes even multiple objectives, making some web sites look like a fast-growing but poorly planned city-roads everywhere, but impossible to navigate. Well-planned information architecture has never been as essential as it is now.

    Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition, shows you how to blend aesthetics and mechanics for distinctive, cohesive web sites that work. Most books on web development concentrate on either the graphics or the technical issues of a site. This book focuses on the framework that holds the two together.

    This edition contains more than 75% new material. You'll find updated chapters on organization, labeling, navigation, and searching; and a new chapter on thesauri, controlled vocabularies and metadata will help you understand the interconnectedness of these systems. The authors have expanded the methodology chapters to include a more interdisciplinary collection of tools and techniques. They've also complemented the top-down strategies of the first edition with bottom-up approaches that enable distributed, emergent solutions.

    A whole new section addresses the opportunities and challenges of practicing information architecture, while another section discusses how that work impacts and is influenced by the broader organizational context. New case studies provide models for creating enterprise intranet portals and online communities. Finally, you'll find pointers to a wealth of essential information architecture resources, many of which did not exist a few years ago.

    By applying the principles outlined in this completely updated classic, you'll build web sites and intranets that are easier to navigate and appealing to your users, as well as scalable and simple to maintain. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition is a treasure trove of ideas and practical advice for anyone involved in building or maintaining a large, complex web site or intranet.

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  • Information Architecture for the World Wide Web : Designing Large-Scale Web Sites
    by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, Linda Mui
    ISBN 1565922824 (1-56592-282-4)
    Softcover, O'Reilly Media, Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    In Chapter 6 of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the authors discuss the details of good search-engine design. In a bitingly humorous segment, they analyze a Web site's search-page results: "Let's say you're interested in knowing what the New Jersey sales tax is.... So you go to the State of New Jersey web site and search on sales tax. The 20 results are scored at either 84% or 82% relevant. Why does each document receive only one of two scores?... And what the heck makes a document 2% more relevant than another?"

    With a swift and convincing stroke, the authors of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web tear down many entrenched ideas about Web design. Flashy animations are cool, they agree, as long as they don't aggravate the viewer. Nifty clickable icons are nice, but are their meanings universal? Is the search engine providing results that are useful and relevant? This book acts as a mirror and with careful questioning causes the reader to think through all the elements and decisions required for well-crafted Web design. --Jennifer Buckendorff [via]

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  • iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
    by Gina Smith, Steve Wozniak
    ISBN 0393061434 (0-393-06143-4)
    Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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    Book summary:

    The mastermind behind Apple sheds his low profile and steps forward to tell his story for the first time.

    Before cell phones that fit in the palm of your hand and slim laptops that fit snugly into briefcases, computers were like strange, alien vending machines. They had cryptic switches, punch cards and pages of encoded output. But in 1975, a young engineering wizard named Steve Wozniak had an idea: What if you combined computer circuitry with a regular typewriter keyboard and a video screen? The result was the first true personal computer, the Apple I, a widely affordable machine that anyone could understand and figure out how to use.

    Wozniak's lifebefore and after Appleis a "home-brew" mix of brilliant discovery and adventure, as an engineer, a concert promoter, a fifth-grade teacher, a philanthropist, and an irrepressible prankster. From the invention of the first personal computer to the rise of Apple as an industry giant, iWoz presents a no-holds-barred, rollicking, firsthand account of the humanist inventor who ignited the computer revolution. 16 pages of illustrations. [via]

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  • Javascript: The Definitive Guide
    by David Flanagan
    ISBN 1565921933 (1-56592-193-3)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    In typical O'Reilly & Associates fashion, this book documents every nuance of the JavaScript 1.1 language specification. It may appear dry on the surface (many pages have the spare style of UNIX online documentation), but this is the book you'll pull off your shelf when you want to know which method returns the primitive value of an object. Flanagan's book comes out ahead of its competitors in a few other areas, too. JavaScript features a useful discussion of the limited JavaScript support found in Microsoft Internet Explorer and provides excellent documentation of LiveConnect, the software that allows JavaScript to communicate with Java applets. It also offers a taste of what's in store for the just-released JavaScript 1.2.

    With a relatively small number of examples and no CD-ROM, this guide is more of a reference than a tutorial. It will serve experienced JavaScript programmers far better than those who are just starting out with the language. [via]

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  • JPod
    by Douglas Coupland
    ISBN 1596911050 (1-59691-105-0)
    Softcover, Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA

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    Book summary:

    Already dubbed Microserfs 2.0 by some pundits--a winking allusion to Douglas Coupland's previous novel Microserfs, which similarly chronicled pop-culture-damaged twentysomething misfits flailing, foundering, and occasionally succeeding in the high-tech sector--JPod is, like all of Coupland's novels, a byproduct of its era and yet strangely detached from it. Only this time with a bold and very crafty narrative device: Douglas Coupland, novelist, is a character in Douglas Coupland's novel. Which, when you think about it, makes sense since the type of people Coupland depicts are precisely the type of people who consume Coupland novels. As the once-great comedian Dennis Miller might holler, "Stop him before he sub-references again!" Readers familiar with Coupland's oeuvre know what to expect with the characterizations here. They also know that Coupland on a roll is both savagely observant and laugh-out-loud funny: "Bree was showing someone photos of her recent holiday visiting Korean animation sweathshops. She was bummed because she couldn't get into North Korea: too much legal juju. [She said] 'I just wanted to know what it's like to be in a society with no technology except for three dial telephones and a TV camera they won from Fidel Castro in a game of rock paper scissors.'" Much of the book is like that, built on granular and meandering exchanges between characters about . . . stuff. While JPod's flow is hobbled by some preposterous twists and character traits and by random words, phrases, and numbers splattered gratuitously across successive pages in oversized typeface, it's hard to imagine Coupland fans walking away disappointed. --Kim Hughes [via]

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  • Learning Perl
    by Randal L. Schwartz
    ISBN 1565920422 (1-56592-042-2)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    In this update of a bestseller, two leading Perl trainers teach you to use the most universal scripting language in the age of the World Wide Web. With a foreword by Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, this smooth, carefully paced book is the "official" guide for both formal (classroom) and informal learning. It is now current for Perl version 5.004. Learning Perl is a hands-on tutorial designed to get you writing useful Perl scripts as quickly as possible. Exercises (with complete solutions) accompany each chapter. A lengthy new chapter in this edition introduces you to CGI programming, while touching also on the use of library modules, references, and Perl's object-oriented constructs. Perl is a language for easily manipulating text, files, and processes. It comes standard on most UNIX platforms and is available free of charge on all other important operating systems. Perl technical support is informally available -- often within minutes -- from a pool of experts who monitor a USENET newsgroup (comp.lang.perl.misc) with tens of thousands of readers. Contents include: A quick tutorial stroll through Perl basics Systematic, topic-by-topic coverage of Perl's broad capabilities Lots of brief code examples Programming exercises for each topic, with fully worked-out answers How to execute system commands from your Perl program How to manage DBM databases using Perl An introduction to CGI programming for the Web [via]

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  • Learning Perl : Making Easy Things Easy and Hard Things Possible
    by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix
    ISBN 0596001320 (0-596-00132-0)
    Softcover, O'Reilly Media, Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    If you ask Perl programmers today what book they relied on most when they were learning Perl, you'll find that an overwhelming majority will name Learning Perl--also known affectionately as "the Llama." The first edition of Learning Perl appeared in 1993 and has been a bestseller ever since. Written by two of the most prominent and active members of the Perl community, this book is the quintessential tutorial for the Perl programming language.

    Perl began as a tool for Unix system administrators, used for countless small tasks throughout the workday. It has since blossomed into a full-featured programming language on practically every computing platform, and is used for web programming, database manipulation, XML processing, and (of course) system administration--all this while still remaining the perfect tool for the small daily tasks it was designed for. Perl is quick, fun, and eminently useful. Many people start using Perl because they need it, but they continue to use Perl because they love it.

    The third edition of Learning Perl has not only been updated for Perl 5.6, but has also been rewritten from the ground up to reflect the needs of programmers learning Perl today. Informed by their years of success at teaching Perl as consultants, the authors have re-engineered the book to better match the pace and scope appropriate for readers trying to get started with Perl, while retaining the detailed discussion, thorough examples, and eclectic wit for which the book is famous.

    This edition of the Llama includes an expanded and more gently-paced introduction to regular expressions, new exercises and solutions designed so readers can practice what they've learned while it's still fresh in their minds, and an overall reworking to bring Learning Perl into the new millennium.

    Perl is a language for getting your job done. Other books may teach you to program in Perl, but this book will turn you into a Perl programmer.

    [via]

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  • Robbins, Jennifer Niederst: Learning Web Design
    Learning Web Design
    by Jennifer Niederst Robbins
    ISBN 160033007X (1-60033-007-X)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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  • Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to Html, Graphics, and Animation
    by Richard Koman, Jennifer Niederst
    ISBN 0596000367 (0-596-00036-7)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    In Learning Web Design, the author of a top-rated web authoring guide (Web Design in a Nutshell) now turns her hand to a beginner's tutorial. The result is a foundation course in HTML, and an ideal starting point for learning how to build web pages.

    The book does not attempt to cover every aspect of web authoring, and you should look elsewhere for coverage of technologies like Flash multimedia, Javascript or XML. Instead, Learning Web Design offers sound and thorough coverage of the fundamentals, presented in a friendly and informal style, and underpinned by the author's in-depth knowledge and professionalism.

    Some Web authors use design tools, while others prefer to work directly with HTML code. This title takes a balanced view, with how-to explanations for Dreamweaver, GoLive and FrontPage, along with the equivalent HTML. For graphics, Photoshop, Fireworks and Paint Shop Pro are specifically covered.

    The book is structured as four parts. The first is an overview, explaining the Web design process. Next comes an HTML tutorial, tackling page formatting, how to include graphics, tables, frames and colours. The third part is a detailed guide to Web graphics, showing how to optimise both appearance and performance. The final section is about usability and design, showing how to create pages to professional standards. There is also a peek at more advanced techniques, showing where to go for more information. The wide-margin layout gives plenty of space for illustrations, some in colour, and there are plentiful tips and references in side-panels. --Tim Anderson [via]

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  • Mac OS X: The Missing Manual
    by David Pogue
    ISBN 0596000820 (0-596-00082-0)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Widely esteemed Mac authority David Pogue weighs in on the latest offering from Cupertino with Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. It's a fact-packed romp through the operating system and the extras that come with it, made resoundingly more readable by the depth of Pogue's knowledge, his familiarity with Mac history, and his eagerness to engage novices as members of the Mac user community. Unlike most books about Mac OS X, this one explores its Unix-like underpinnings (the Apple implementation is called Darwin) pretty thoroughly. However, on the logic that if you wanted to use Unix, you would, Pogue emphasises the traditional, graphical Mac interface over the Terminal window.

    Pogue, who's written about Macs for years writes about Macs at the user level with clarity. He's also quite good at dealing with the numerous options and variations that apply to Mac procedures, and makes very good use of sidebars for clarifying details. In a section on printing, for example, Pogue explains why there's no longer an option to turn off background printing (true multitasking has rendered the option obsolete). There's also good coverage of the online iTools, tailored to people unfamiliar with integrating remote resources into their personal computing environments. --David Wall

    Topics covered: Apple Mac OS X for people who will use the operating system, either on a standalone computer with Internet access or on a computer that is part of a home or organisational network. Running applications (in Classic mode as well as in native Mac OS X mode), printing, networking, multimedia, security (including Keychain), and utilities are all covered. [via]

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  • Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition
    by David Pogue
    ISBN 0596006152 (0-596-00615-2)
    Softcover, Pogue Pr

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    Book summary:

    Apple says that Mac OS X 10.3 introduces 150 new features--but that's not really true. In fact, "Panther" includes many more than that. It's faster, more polished, and much more efficient. But it still comes without a manual.

    With 300,000 copies in print, the first two versions of this book became industry bestsellers. Now David Pogue brings his humor and expertise to this completely rewritten, greatly expanded edition. It covers:

    • Getting started. The early chapters demystify the Dock, windows, and the unfamiliar Mac OS X folder structure--an ideal introduction.
    • New technologies. Mac OS X 10.3 brings breakthroughs in window management (Expose, the Sidebar); security (File Vault, Secure Empty Trash); and productivity (faxing, Fast User Switching).
    • Bonus software. Panther comes with over 50 free programs--and this book gives you expertise in all of them. This beefed-up edition includes all-new mini-manuals on iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iChat AV, and Safari.
    • Basics of Unix. You can completely ignore Panther's Unix core. But if the command line intrigues you, this book offers a gentle introduction.
    • Finding familiar features. Two "Where'd It Go?" Dictionaries make it easy for Mac OS 9 and Windows refugees to look up a traditional feature--and find out where it went in Mac OS X 10.3.

    As always, Mac OS X: The Missing Manual offers warm, witty writing, and bursts with the shortcuts, surprises, and design touches that make the Mac the most passionately championed computer in the world.
    [via]

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  • MAC OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition
    by David Pogue
    ISBN 0596009410 (0-596-00941-0)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    You can set your watch to it: As soon as Apple comes out with another version of Mac OS X, David Pogue hits the streets with another meticulous Missing Manual to cover it with a wealth of detail. The new Mac OS X 10.4, better known as Tiger, is faster than its predecessors, but nothing's too fast for Pogue and Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. There are many reasons why this is the most popular computer book of all time.

    With its hallmark objectivity, the Tiger Edition thoroughly explores the latest features to grace the Mac OS. Which ones work well and which do not? What should you look for? This book tackles Spotlight, an enhanced search feature that helps you find anything on your computer; iChat AV for videoconferencing; Automator for automating repetitive, manual or batch tasks; and the hundreds of smaller tweaks and changes, good and bad, that Apple's marketing never bothers to mention.

    Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition is the authoritative book that's ideal for every user, including people coming to the Mac for the first time. Our guide offers an ideal introduction that demystifies the Dock, the unfamiliar Mac OS X folder structure, and the entirely new Mail application. There are also mini-manuals on iLife applications such as iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto, those much-heralded digital media programs, and a tutorial for Safari, Mac's own web browser.

    And plenty more: learn to configure Mac OS X using the System Preferences application, keep your Mac secure with FileVault, and learn about Tiger's enhanced Firewall capabilities. If you're so inclined, this Missing Manual also offers an easy introduction to the Terminal application for issuing basic Unix commands.

    There's something new on practically every page, and David Pogue brings his celebrated wit and expertise to every one of them. Mac's brought a new cat to town and we have a great new way to tame it.

    [via]

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  • Mastering Regular Expressions
    by Jeffrey E. Friedl
    ISBN 0596528124 (0-596-52812-4)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Regular expressions are a central element of UNIX utilities like egrep and programming languages such as Perl. But whether you're a UNIX user or not, you can benefit from a better understanding of regular expressions since they work with applications ranging from validating data-entry fields to manipulating information in multimegabyte text files. Mastering Regular Expressions quickly covers the basics of regular-expression syntax, then delves into the mechanics of expression-processing, common pitfalls, performance issues, and implementation-specific differences. Written in an engaging style and sprinkled with solutions to complex real-world problems, Mastering Regular Expressions offers a wealth information that you can put to immediate use. [via]

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  • Mastering Regular Expressions: Powerful Techniques for Perl and Other Tools
    by Friedl, Jeffrey, E. F.
    ISBN 1565922573 (1-56592-257-3)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    Regular expressions are a central element of UNIX utilities like egrep and programming languages such as Perl. But whether you're a UNIX user or not, you can benefit from a better understanding of regular expressions since they work with applications ranging from validating data-entry fields to manipulating information in multimegabyte text files. Mastering Regular Expressions quickly covers the basics of regular-expression syntax, then delves into the mechanics of expression-processing, common pitfalls, performance issues, and implementation-specific differences. Written in an engaging style and sprinkled with solutions to complex real-world problems, Mastering Regular Expressions offers a wealth information that you can put to immediate use. [via]

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  • Microserfs
    by Douglas Coupland
    ISBN 0060987049 (0-06-098704-9)
    Softcover, Harpercollins

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    Book summary:

    Microserfs is not about Microsoft--it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life. This isn't just fodder for techies. The thoughts and fears of the not-so-stereotypical characters are easy for any of us to relate to, and their witty conversations and quirky view of the world make this a surprisingly thought-provoking book.

    " ... just think about the way high-tech cultures purposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s," muses one programmer. "I mean, all those Nerf toys and free beverages! And the way tech firms won't even call work 'the office,' but instead, 'the campus.' It's sick and evil." [via]

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  • The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
    by Frederick Phillips Brooks
    ISBN 0201835959 (0-201-83595-9)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    Classic book on the human elements of software engineering. [via]

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  • Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
    by Martin Fowler, David Rice, Randy Stafford, Matthew Foemmel, Edward Hieatt, Robert Mee
    ISBN 0321127420 (0-321-12742-0)
    Hardcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture [Hardcover] by Fowler, Martin [via]

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  • Perl Cookbook
    by Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, Linda Mui
    ISBN 1565922433 (1-56592-243-3)
    Softcover, O'Reilly Media, Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    When the second edition of Programming Perl was released, the authors omitted two chapters: "Common Tasks with Perl" and "Real Perl Programs." Publisher O'Reilly & Associates soon realized that there would be too many pages in Programming Perl if it put updated recipes in the new edition. Instead, O'Reilly chose to release the many Perl code examples as a separate entity: The Perl Cookbook.

    The recipes are well documented and the examples aren't too arcane; even beginners will be able to pick up the lessons taught here. The authors write in relatively easy-to-understand language (for a technical guide). Through this book and its arsenal of recipes, you will learn many new things about Perl to help you through your toughest projects. The next time you're working on a project at 2 a.m., you'll thank yourself for the guidance and direction The Perl Cookbook provides. --Doug Beaver [via]

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  • Planning Extreme Programming
    by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Jennifer Kohnke
    ISBN 0201710919 (0-201-71091-9)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    Programming continues to refuse to be engineering. This is why there are so many cancelled projects, cost and time overruns and customer dissatisfaction. Planning Extreme Programming offers a way to run small-to-medium size programming projects in such a way as to produce the required product on time and to budget.

    To achieve this the authors focus away from complex, report-led planning to a people-oriented process which treats programming like a craft project. Extreme Programming starts by recognising reality: start right and you'll finish right. In fact the authors specifically argue against overtime, increasing manpower on late projects and other such attempts to increase productivity as evidence of failure. They start by breaking projects into stories (or features), insist on customer involvement, iterate relentlessly over a timescale of weeks, set short-term targets based on the evidence of previous iterations and--in a break with traditional practices--absolutely insist on customer involvement at every stage, including signing off each story.

    The claimed results of applying the XP approach is a better product with fewer bugs as well as the ability to meet agreed deadlines and budgets. Pretty impressive claims for a book that reads like a set of obvious, common-sense rules. Astonishingly, the only planning tool required is a box of index cards and the right attitude. You are even recommended to avoid spreadsheets. Perhaps, then, the real success of Extreme Programming rests on its implicit acknowledgement that programming is a craft, and not engineering. What can you say? It works. Read it and then implement it. -- Steve Patient [via]

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  • The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
    by David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
    ISBN 020161622X (0-201-61622-X)
    Softcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    Programmers are craftspeople trained to use a certain set of tools (editors, object managers, version trackers) to generate a certain kind of product (programs) that will operate in some environment (operating systems on hardware assemblies). Like any other craft, computer programming has spawned a body of wisdom, most of which isn't taught at universities or in certification classes. Most programmers arrive at the so-called tricks of the trade over time, through independent experimentation. In The Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt and David Thomas codify many of the truths they've discovered during their respective careers as designers of software and writers of code.

    Some of the authors' nuggets of pragmatism are concrete, and the path to their implementation is clear. They advise readers to learn one text editor, for example, and use it for everything. They also recommend the use of version-tracking software for even the smallest projects, and promote the merits of learning regular expression syntax and a text-manipulation language. Other (perhaps more valuable) advice is more light-hearted. In the debugging section, it is noted that, "if you see hoof prints think horses, not zebras." That is, suspect everything, but start looking for problems in the most obvious places. There are recommendations for making estimates of time and expense, and for integrating testing into the development process. You'll want a copy of The Pragmatic Programmer for two reasons: it displays your own accumulated wisdom more cleanly than you ever bothered to state it, and it introduces you to methods of work that you may not yet have considered. Working programmers will enjoy this book. --David Wall

    Topics covered: A useful approach to software design and construction that allows for efficient, profitable development of high-quality products. Elements of the approach include specification development, customer relations, team management, design practices, development tools, and testing procedures. This approach is presented with the help of anecdotes and technical problems. [via]

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  • Programming Perl
    by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant
    ISBN 0596000278 (0-596-00027-8)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    This is the authoritative guide to the hottest new UNIX utility in years, coauthored by its creator, Larry Wall. Perl is a language for easily manipulating text, files, and processes. Perl provides a more concise and readable way to do many jobs that were formerly accomplished (with difficulty) by programming in the C language or one of the shells. Even though Perl is not yet a standard part of UNIX, it is likely to be available wherever you choose to work. And if it isn't, you can get it and install it easily and free of charge. Contents include: An introduction to Perl Common tasks with Perl Real Perl programs; includes database manipulation, programming aids, system administration, text and filename manipulation, interprocess communication, and more Perl syntax Perl functions Other oddments; invocation options, debugging, efficiency, the Perl library, linking in C subroutines, etc. Also includes a pull-out quick-reference card (designed and created by Johan Vromans). [via]

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  • Programming Perl
    by Stephen Potter, Larry Wall, Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Christiansen
    ISBN 1565921496 (1-56592-149-6)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    The second edition of the Camel Book is more than 600 pages long and full of excellent instruction and sound advice. Topics include all the good stuff from the first edition plus Perl 5 features such as nested data structures (ever made a hash of arrays of hashes?), modules, and objects. From "Howdy World" to making your own modules, this book has it all. [via]

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  • Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide
    by David Thomas, Andrew Hunt, Chad Fowler
    ISBN 0974514055 (0-9745140-5-5)
    Softcover, Pragmatic Bookshelf

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    Book summary:

    "Big in Japan" was a pejorative term for failed pop musicians, but it accurately describes the Ruby language, designed by Yukihiro Matsumoto. The authors--who wrote The Pragmatic Programmer--feel it deserves a wider exposure in the English-speaking world.

    Ruby is fully object oriented with a simple and consistent syntax. It is Open Source and freely available from ftp:ftp.netlab.co.jp/pub/lang/ruby as well as many mirrors. In Programming Ruby the authors set out to show that Ruby can and should replace languages such as Perl, Python, SmallTalk and C++; from which it takes all the best features--even Perl's excellent regular expression support.

    The book is in four parts: a tutorial; a section on installing and running it in various environments; a section on the inner workings and interrelationships of the language; and, finally, a huge library reference. The authors make their case for the language's simplicity, predictability and flexibility. Unlike languages which have grown by accretion, such as Perl, it is remarkably clean.

    Clearly a labour of love, Programming Ruby is equally clean and the authors' enthusiasm for it drips from the pages. Certainly, if you are passionate about efficient, error-free coding Ruby is hard to beat. There are, though, an awful lot of languages available already.

    Ruby is certainly worth a look just to see how simple and accessible an object-oriented language can be when its author can draw on the best and throw away the rest. Working programmers will decide whether Ruby gains widespread acceptance but in Programming Ruby it has a powerful and convincing advocate. --Steve Patient [via]

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  • Rapid Development
    by Steve McConnell, Microsoft Press
    ISBN 0072850604 (0-07-285060-4)
    Softcover, McGraw-Hill College

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    Book summary:

    I can hear some of you exclaiming, "How can you possibly recommend a book about software scheduling published by Microsoft Press and written by a consultant to Microsoft?!" Well, put aside any preconceived biases. This is a tremendous book on effective scheduling software development, and it drinks deeply from the wisdom of all the classics in the field such as Brook's Mythical Man Month -- and is likely well-informed by McConnell's experiences, good and bad, in Redmond.

    The nine page section entitled "Classic Mistakes Enumerated" is alone worth the price of admission and should be required reading for all developers, leads, and managers. Here are some types of the 36 classic mistakes that McConnell describes in detail:

    • People Related Mistakes
      • Heroics
      • Adding people to a late project
      • Politics placed over substance (etc.)

    • Process Related Mistakes
      • Abandonment of planning under pressure
      • Planning to catch up later
      • "Code-like-hell" programming (etc.)

    • Technology Related Mistakes
      • Silver-Bullet syndrome
      • Overestimating savings from new tools or methods
      • Switching tools in the middle of a project (etc.)

    I suspect that if you've ever been involved in software development, you winced after reading each of these nine points. And you will learn a great deal from the remaining 640 pages about concrete solutions.

    My only substantive gripe: cheesy Powerpoint graphics. Nonetheless, this book is Very Highly Recommended. [via]

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  • Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
    by Steve McConnell
    ISBN 1556159005 (1-55615-900-5)
    Softcover, Microsoft Pr

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    Book summary:

    I can hear some of you exclaiming, "How can you possibly recommend a book about software scheduling published by Microsoft Press and written by a consultant to Microsoft?!" Well, put aside any preconceived biases. This is a tremendous book on effective scheduling software development, and it drinks deeply from the wisdom of all the classics in the field such as Brook's Mythical Man Month -- and is likely well-informed by McConnell's experiences, good and bad, in Redmond.

    The nine page section entitled "Classic Mistakes Enumerated" is alone worth the price of admission and should be required reading for all developers, leads, and managers. Here are some types of the 36 classic mistakes that McConnell describes in detail:

    • People Related Mistakes
      • Heroics
      • Adding people to a late project
      • Politics placed over substance (etc.)

    • Process Related Mistakes
      • Abandonment of planning under pressure
      • Planning to catch up later
      • "Code-like-hell" programming (etc.)

    • Technology Related Mistakes
      • Silver-Bullet syndrome
      • Overestimating savings from new tools or methods
      • Switching tools in the middle of a project (etc.)

    I suspect that if you've ever been involved in software development, you winced after reading each of these nine points. And you will learn a great deal from the remaining 640 pages about concrete solutions.

    My only substantive gripe: cheesy Powerpoint graphics. Nonetheless, this book is Very Highly Recommended. [via]

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  • Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
    by Don Roberts, Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke
    ISBN 0201485672 (0-201-48567-2)
    Hardcover, Addison-Wesley

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    Book summary:

    Your class library works, but could it be better? Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code shows how refactoring can make object-oriented code simpler and easier to maintain. Today refactoring requires considerable design know-how, but once tools become available, all programmers should be able to improve their code using refactoring techniques.

    Besides an introduction to refactoring, this handbook provides a catalog of dozens of tips for improving code. The best thing about Refactoring is its remarkably clear presentation, along with excellent nuts-and-bolts advice, from object expert Martin Fowler. The author is also an authority on software patterns and UML, and this experience helps make this a better book, one that should be immediately accessible to any intermediate or advanced object-oriented developer. (Just like patterns, each refactoring tip is presented with a simple name, a "motivation," and examples using Java and UML.)

    Early chapters stress the importance of testing in successful refactoring. (When you improve code, you have to test to verify that it still works.) After the discussion on how to detect the "smell" of bad code, readers get to the heart of the book, its catalog of over 70 "refactorings"--tips for better and simpler class design. Each tip is illustrated with "before" and "after" code, along with an explanation. Later chapters provide a quick look at refactoring research.

    Like software patterns, refactoring may be an idea whose time has come. This groundbreaking title will surely help bring refactoring to the programming mainstream. With its clear advice on a hot new topic, Refactoring is sure to be essential reading for anyone who writes or maintains object-oriented software. --Richard Dragan

    Topics Covered: Refactoring, improving software code, redesign, design tips, patterns, unit testing, refactoring research, and tools. [via]

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  • The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
    by John Battelle
    ISBN 1591841410 (1-59184-141-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    What does the world want? According to John Battelle, a company that answers that question -- in all its shades of meaning -- can unlock the most intractable riddles of both business and culture. And for the past few years, that's exactly what Google has been doing.

    Jumping into the game long after Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, and other pioneers, Google offered a radical new approach to search, redefined the idea of viral marketing, survived the dotcom crash, and pulled off the largest and most talked about initial public offering in the history of Silicon Valley.

    But The Search offers much more than the inside story of Google's triumph. It's also a big-picture book about the past, present, and future of search technology, and the enormous impact it is starting to have on marketing, media, pop culture, dating, job hunting, international law, civil liberties, and just about every other sphere of human interest.

    More than any of its rivals, Google has become the gateway to instant knowledge. Hundreds of millions of people use it to satisfy their wants, needs, fears, and obsessions, creating an enormous artifact that Battelle calls "the Database of Intentions." Somewhere in Google's archives, for instance, you can find the agonized research of a gay man with AIDS, the silent plotting of a would-be bombmaker, and the anxiety of a woman checking out her blind date. Combined with the databases of thousands of other search-driven businesses, large and small, it all adds up to a goldmine of information that powerful organizations (including the government) will want to get their hands on.

    No one is better qualified to explain this entire phenomenon than Battelle, who cofounded Wired and founded The Industry Standard. Perhaps more than any other journalist, he has devoted his career to finding the holy grail of technology -- something as transformational as the Macintosh was in the mid- 1980s. And he has finally found it in search.

    Battelle draws on more than 350 interviews with major players from Silicon Valley to Seattle to Wall Street, including Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt, as well as competitors like Louis Monier, who invented AltaVista, and Neil Moncrief, a soft-spoken Georgian whose business Google built, destroyed, and built again.

    Battelle lucidly reveals how search technology actually works, explores the amazing power of targeted advertising, and reports on the frenzy of the Google IPO, when the company tried to rewrite the rules of Wall Street and declared "don't be evil" as its corporate motto.

    For anyone who wants to understand how Google really succeeded -- and the implications of a world in which every click can be preserved forever -- THE SEARCH is an eye-opening and indispensable read. [via]

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  • Ssh, the Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide
    by Daniel Barrett, Richard E. Silverman, Robert G. Byrnes
    ISBN 0596008953 (0-596-00895-3)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    Book summary:

    The suite of utility applications that Unix users and administrators find indispensable--Telnet, rlogin, FTP, and the rest--can in fact prove to be the undoing of interconnected systems. The Secure Shell, aka SSH, which isn't a true shell at all, provides your otherwise attack-prone utilities with the protection they need. SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide explains how to use SSH at all levels. In a blended sequence, the book explains what SSH is all about, how it fits into a larger security scheme, and how to employ it as an everyday user with an SSH client. More technically detailed chapters show how to configure a SSH server--several variants are covered--and how to integrate SSH with non-Unix client platforms.

    As befits its detail- and variation-rich subject, this book comprises many specialised sections, each dealing with some specific aspect of use or configuration (setting up access control at the account level, for example, or generating keys for a particular SSH server). The writing is both informative and fun to read; the authors switch back and forth between text and entry-and-response listings from SSH machines. They often run through a half-dozen or more variants on the same command in a few pages, providing the reader with lots of practical information. The discussion of how SSH fits into a Kerberos Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is great, as is the advice on defeating particular kinds of attacks. --David Wall

    Topics covered:

    • The Secure Shell (SSH) for installers, administrators, and everyday users
    • SSH design and operation
    • Server setup
    • SSH agents
    • Client configuration
    • Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) integration
    • SSH1
    • SSH2
    • F-Secure
    • OpenSSH for Unix
    • SSH1 and SecureCRT for Microsoft Windows
    • NiftyTelnet SSH for Mac OS
    [via]

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  • Web Design in a Nutshell
    by Jennifer Niederst Robbins
    ISBN 1600330126 (1-60033-012-6)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    › Find signed collectible books: 'Web Design in a Nutshell'
    Book summary:

    Are you still designing web sites like it's 1999? If so, you're in for a surprise. Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design.

    Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.

    The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics:

    • Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities
    • Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values.
    • Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM)
    • Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization
    • Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs
    • Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDF

    Organized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology.


    There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.

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  • Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
    by Jennifer Niederst
    ISBN 1565925157 (1-56592-515-7)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    › Find signed collectible books: 'Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference'
    Book summary:

    Are you still designing web sites like it's 1999? If so, you're in for a surprise. Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design.

    Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.

    The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics:

    • Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities
    • Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values.
    • Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM)
    • Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization
    • Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs
    • Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDF

    Organized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology.


    There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.

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    More editions of Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference:

  • Harold, Elliotte Rusty: Xml in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
    Xml in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
    by Elliotte Rusty Harold, W. Scott Means
    ISBN 0596000588 (0-596-00058-8)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    › Find signed collectible books: 'Xml in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference'
    Book summary:

    If you're a developer working with XML, you know there's a lot to know about XML, and the XML space is evolving almost moment by moment. But you don't need to commit every XML syntax, API, or XSLT transformation to memory; you only need to know where to find it. And if it's a detail that has to do with XML or its companion standards, you'll find it--clear, concise, useful, and well-organized--in the updated third edition of XML in a Nutshell.

    With XML in a Nutshell beside your keyboard, you'll be able to:

    • Quick-reference syntax rules and usage examples for the core XML technologies, including XML, DTDs, Xpath, XSLT, SAX, and DOM
    • Develop an understanding of well-formed XML, DTDs, namespaces, Unicode, and W3C XML Schema
    • Gain a working knowledge of key technologies used for narrative XML documents such as web pages, books, and articles technologies like XSLT, Xpath, Xlink, Xpointer, CSS, and XSL-FO
    • Build data-intensive XML applications
    • Understand the tools and APIs necessary to build data-intensive XML applications and process XML documents, including the event-based Simple API for XML (SAX2) and the tree-oriented Document Object Model (DOM)
    This powerful new edition is the comprehensive XML reference. Serious users of XML will find coverage on just about everything they need, from fundamental syntax rules, to details of DTD and XML Schema creation, to XSLT transformations, to APIs used for processing XML documents. XML in a Nutshell also covers XML 1.1, as well as updates to SAX2 and DOM Level 3 coverage. If you need explanation of how a technology works, or just need to quickly find the precise syntax for a particular piece, XML in a Nutshell puts the information at your fingertips.

    Simply put, XML in a Nutshell is the critical, must-have reference for any XML developer.

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  • Mangano, Sal: Xslt Cookbook
    Xslt Cookbook
    by Sal Mangano
    ISBN 0596009747 (0-596-00974-7)
    Softcover, Oreilly & Associates Inc

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    More editions of Xslt Cookbook:

  • Xslt Cookbook : Solutions and Examples for XML and XSLT Developers
    by Salvatore Mangano
    ISBN 0596003722 (0-596-00372-2)
    Softcover, O'Reilly Media, Incorporated

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    › Find signed collectible books: 'Xslt Cookbook : Solutions and Examples for XML and XSLT Developers'
    Book summary:

    Critical for converting XML documents, and extremely versatile, the XSLT language nevertheless has complexities that can be daunting. The XSLT Cookbook is a collection of hundreds of solutions to problems that Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) developers regularly face. The recipes range from simple string-manipulation and mathematical processing to more complex topics like extending XSLT, testing and debugging XSLT stylesheets, and graphics creation with SVG. Recipes can be run directly or tweaked to fit your particular application's needs more precisely.

    Each recipe walks through a problem and a solution, with explanations of the choices made and techniques used in creating that solution, and many recipes include alternate solutions and explore issues like convenience and performance. Topics covered include:

    • String manipulation
    • Mathematical processing
    • Date and time handling
    • Interactions between calendar systems
    • Selecting content in source documents
    • Efficient tree-manipulation
    • Conversions from XML to plain text
    • Tweaking XML documents with stylesheets
    • Using XSLT to query XML documents
    • Generating HTML with XSLT
    • Creating charts and graphs with SVG and XSLT
    • Generating C and XSLT code using XSLT
    • Processing Visio documents in XSLT
    • Working with XML Topic Maps (XTM)
    • Using XSLT to create SOAP documentation from WSDL
    • Extending XSLT with additional functions
    • Embedding XSLT in other processing
    • Testing and debugging XSLT stylesheets
    • Creating generic XSLT processors which work on many XML vocabularies
    The XSLT Cookbook provides an ideal companion both for developers still figuring out XSLT's template-based approach who want to learn by example, and for developers who know XSLT and want a collection of quickly reusable recipes. XSLT frequently offers a number of ways to perform a transformation, and the best solution may not always be the most straightforward. The recipes in this Cookbook demonstrate and explain XSLT's template-based logic, a frequent stumbling block for developers new to XSLT. Among the variety of XSLT books now available, none has the explicit solution-oriented approach of this Cookbook.
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