| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ajax in Action'
Val's Blog "A tremendously useful field guide specifically written for developers down in the trenches...waiting for the killer solution..."
Web users are getting tired of the traditional web experience. They get frustrated losing their scroll position; they get annoyed waiting for refresh; they struggle to reorient themselves on every new page. And the list goes on. With asynchronous JavaScript and XML, known as "Ajax," you can give them a better experience. Once users have experienced an Ajax interface, they hate to go back. Ajax is new way of thinking that can result in a flowing and intuitive interaction with the user.
Ajax in Action helps you implement that thinking--it explains how to distribute the application between the client and the server (hint: use a "nested MVC" design) while retaining the integrity of the system. You will learn how to ensure your app is flexible and maintainable, and how good, structured design can help avoid problems like browser incompatibilities. Along the way it helps you unlearn many old coding habits. Above all, it opens your mind to the many advantages gained by placing much of the processing in the browser. If you are a web developer who has prior experience with web technologies, this book is for you.
Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.
More editions of Ajax in Action:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ajax on Rails'
Learn to build dynamic, interactive web applications using the two most important approaches to web development today: Ajax and the phenomenally efficient Ruby on Rails platform. This book teaches intermediate to advanced web developers how to use both Ajax and Rails to quickly build high-performance, scalable applications without being overwhelmed with thousands of lines of JavaScript code. More than just recipes, you also get a thorough, low-level understanding of what's happening under the hood.
Beyond the how-to, Ajax on Rails helps you consider when Ajax is (and isn't) appropriate, and the trade-offs associated with it. For those new to Rails, this book provides a quick introduction, the big picture, a walk through the installation process, and some tips on getting started. If you've already started working with Rails and seek to deepen your skill set, you'll find dozens of examples drawn from real-world projects, exhaustive reference for every relevant feature, and expert advice on how to "Ajaxify" your applications.
More editions of Ajax on Rails:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ambient Findability'
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
[via]More editions of Ambient Findability:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths'
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when large companies and powerful governments reigned supreme over the little guy. But new technologies are empowering individuals like never before, and the Davids of the world-the amateur journalists, musicians, and small businessmen and women-are suddenly making a huge economic and social impact.
In Army of Davids, author Glenn Reynolds, the man behind the immensely popular Instapundit.com, provides an in-depth, big-picture point-of-view for a world where the small guys matter more and more. Reynolds explores the birth and growth of the individual's surprisingly strong influence in: arts and entertainment, anti-terrorism, nanotech and space research, and much more.
The balance of power between the individual and the organization is finally evening out. And it's high time the Goliaths of the world pay attention, because, as this book proves, an army of Davids is on the rise.
"George Orwell feared that technology would enable dictators to enslave the masses. Glenn Reynolds shows that technology can empower individuals to determine their own futures and to defeat those who would enslave us. This is a book of profound importance-and also a darn good read.-MICHAEL BARONE, senior writer at U.S. News & World Report and author of Hard America, Soft America
"Blogger extraordinaire Glenn Reynolds shows how average Americans can use new technologies to overcome the twin demons of corporate greed and incompetent government. Reynolds is a compelling evangelist for the power of the individual to change our world.-ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, author of Pigs at the Trough and Fanatics and Fools
A smart, fun tour of a major social and economic trend. From home-brewed beer to blogging, Glenn Reynolds is an engaging, uniquely qualified guide to the do-it-yourself movements transforming business, politics, and media.-VIRGINIA POSTREL, Forbes columnist and author of The Future and its Enemies and The Substance of Style
A student in her dorm room now commands the resources of a multi-million dollar music recording or movie editing studio of not so many years ago. The tools of creativity have been democratized and the tools of production are not far behind (Karl Marx take note). Glenn Reynolds's beguiling new book tells the insightful story of how an 'army of Davids' is inheriting the Earth, leaving a trail of obsolete business models not to mention cultural, economic, and political institutions in its wake.-RAY KURZWEIL, scientist, inventor, and author of several books including The Singularity is Near
'Must-read,' 'gotta have,' 'culture-changing' . . . I am suspicious of blurbs with such overused plugs. But Glenn Reynolds's An Army of Davids is in fact a must-read new book that you gotta have if you are going to understand the culture-changing forces that are unleashed and at work across the globe.-HUGH HEWITT, syndicated talk radio host and author of Blog and Painting the Map Red
Glenn Reynolds has written an essential book for understanding how technology and markets are creating a bottom-up shift in power to ordinary people that is changing business, government, and our world. Packed with fresh ideas and adorned with graceful prose, An Army of Davids is a masterpiece.-JOE TRIPPI, author of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
"I cannot think of a better book for the average reader to understand just how the Web and other digital technologies are reversing the polarities of modern society-restoring many features of daily life lost with the Industrial Revolution, while at the same time inventing powerful new cultural institutions. And for those of us who make careers out of watching this transformation, no book to date so well summarizes all of the diverse trends in a single narrative."-MICHAEL MALONE, "Silicon Insider," ABC News
"Reynolds' highly informative book-a must-read if you want to have some idea of the direction things are taking-is about a lot more than the effect of blogging on Big Media. Its theme is 'the triumph of personal technology over mass technology,' which is a trend Reynolds believes is only 'going to strengthen over the coming decades.'"- FRANK WILSON, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Instapundit's book reads fast. . . It's just one big idea after another, like a Hollywood thriller that piles on the plot rather than stopping to tie up the loose ends. . . He's fearless. . ."-MICKEY KAUS, Kausfiles
"The book covers everything from home-brewing beer to space travel, but all the themes are connected by Glenn's faith in human imagination and creativity. It's a must-read for anyone interested in where technology is taking us."-JIM MEIGS, Popular Mechanics
"Reynolds comes across as a good-humored, reasonable and even modest fellow, so it is astonishing to realize just how ambitious An Army of Davids really is. A hundred years ago, nobody could accurately explain or predict just where the Industrial Revolution would take us. Now, Reynolds attempts nothing short of explaining and predicting where the Information Revolution will take us. . . I will make a prediction-in December, when lists of the most important books of the year are drawn up, this one will be near the top."- JAMES L. MERRINER, Chicago Sun-Times
"Reynolds argues that we are undergoing a sea change. The balance of advantage-in every aspect of society-is shifting from big organizations to small ones. . . Reynolds presents his case with verve and wit."- ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE, Wall Street Journal
". . . crisp and readable. . . "-The Economist
"Glenn Reynolds isn't just the author of 'An Army of Davids." He's a living, breathing embodiment of the book's attractive and persuasive thesis. . ."-NICK GILLESPIE, New York Post
[via]More editions of Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World'
"Blog" is short for "Web log"an online site with time-dated postings, maintained by one or more posters, that features links and commentary. That's the most basic definition, but it is like saying a car is a means of transportation featuring four wheels. In Blog, syndicated radio talk show host and best-selling author Hugh Hewitt helps you catch up with and get ahead of this phenomenon.
"Millions of people are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition," writes Hewitt. "This has happened many times beforewith the appearance of the printing press, then the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, and Internet. Now the blogosphere has appeared, and it has come so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts."
If you doubt the influence blogs have in society, think again. Better yet, just ask Senator Trent Lott regarding his comments at Strom Thurmond's birtuday celebration. Ask New York Times editor-in-chief Howell Raines about reporter Jayson Blair's fabricated stories. Ask Dan Rather and CBS about President Bush's National Guard documents faxed from a Texas Kinko's. Or ask John Kerry about his battle with Swift Boat veterans. All of these major stories were fully covered by the mainstream media only after their exposure in the blogosphere.
"Hugh Hewitt [is] the unofficial historian of the blogging movement." The Wall Street Journal
[via]More editions of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Blog: Understanding The Information/Reformation That's Changing Your World'
"Blog" is short for "Web log"-an online site with time-dated postings, maintained by one or more posters, that features links and commentary. But that is like saying a car is a means of transportation featuring four wheels. Millions are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition, and the blogosphere has appeared so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts. In Blog, best-selling author Hugh Hewitt helps you catch up with and get ahead of this phenomenon.
Up until now no influential blogger has written a definitive book about this phenomenon. Since Hugh Hewitt's blog site-HughHewitt-was launched in early 2002, more than 10 million people have visited this site. Why does this visitor traffic matter? People's attentions are up for grabs. If you depend upon the steady trust of others, suddenly you have an audience waiting to hear from you. The race is underway, though, to gain mindspace and to be part of the blogosphere readers' habits and to position yourself as well as your business or organization at the forefront of this information movement.
[via]More editions of Blog: Understanding The Information/Reformation That's Changing Your World:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know And Why You Should Care'
More editions of Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know And Why You Should Care:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Brand Building on the Internet'
More editions of Brand Building on the Internet:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Breakthrough Illusion: Corporate America's Failure to Move from Innovation to Mass Production'
The USA has often failed to capitalise on its technological breakthroughs. This analysis of the weaknesses and strengths of US high technology warns that until the US learns to reconnect research and development with production, foreign companies will continue to prevail in the world marketplace. [via]
More editions of The Breakthrough Illusion: Corporate America's Failure to Move from Innovation to Mass Production:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary'
It may be foolish to consider Eric Raymond's recent collection of essays, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, the most important computer programming thinking to follow the Internet revolution. But it would be more unfortunate to overlook the implications and long-term benefits of his fastidious description of open-source software development considering the growing dependence businesses and economies have on emerging computer technologies.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar takes its title from an essay Raymond read at the 1997 Linux Kongress. The essay documents Raymond's acquisition, re-creation, and numerous revisions of an e-mail utility known as fetchmail. Raymond engagingly narrates the fetchmail development process while elaborating on the ongoing bazaar development method he uses with the help of volunteer programmers. The essay smartly spares the reader from the technical morass that could easily detract from the text's goal of demonstrating the efficacy of the open-source, or bazaar, method in creating robust, usable software.
Once Raymond has established the components and players necessary for an optimally running open-source model, he sets out to counter the conventional wisdom of private, closed-source software development. Like superbly written code, the author's arguments systematically anticipate their rebuttals. For programmers who "worry that the transition to open source will abolish or devalue their jobs," Raymond adeptly and factually counters that "most developer's salaries don't depend on software sale value." Raymond's uncanny ability to convince is as unrestrained as his capacity for extrapolating upon the promise of open-source development.
In addition to outlining the open-source methodology and its benefits, Raymond also sets out to salvage the hacker moniker from the nefarious connotations typically associated with it in his essay, "A Brief History of Hackerdom" (not surprisingly, he is also the compiler of The New Hacker's Dictionary). Recasting hackerdom in a more positive light may be a heroic undertaking in itself, but considering the Herculean efforts and perfectionist motivations of Raymond and his fellow open-source developers, that light will shine brightly. --Ryan Kuykendall [via]
More editions of The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual'
How would you classify a book that begins with the salutation, "People of Earth..."? While the captains of industry might dismiss it as mere science fiction, The Cluetrain Manifesto is definitely of this day and age. Aiming squarely at the solar plexus of corporate America, authors Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger show how the Internet is turning business upside down. They proclaim that, thanks to conversations taking place on Web sites and message boards, and in e-mail and chat rooms, employees and customers alike have found voices that undermine the traditional command-and-control hierarchy that organizes most corporate marketing groups. "Markets are conversations," the authors write, and those conversations are "getting smarter faster than most companies." In their view, the lowly customer service rep wields far more power and influence in today's marketplace than the well-oiled front office PR machine.
The Cluetrain Manifesto began as a Web site (www.cluetrain.com) in 1999 when the authors, who have worked variously at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal, and NPR, posted 95 theses that pronounced what they felt was the new reality of the networked marketplace. For example, thesis no. 2: "Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors"; thesis no. 20: "Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them"; thesis no. 62: "Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall"; thesis no. 74: "We are immune to advertising. Just forget it." The book enlarges on these themes through seven essays filled with dozens of stories and observations about how business gets done in America and how the Internet will change it all. While Cluetrain will strike many as loud and over the top, the message itself remains quite relevant and unique. This book is for anyone interested in the Internet and e-commerce, and is especially important for those businesses struggling to navigate the topography of the wired marketplace. All aboard! --Harry C. Edwards [via]
More editions of The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Create Your Own Photo Blog'
More editions of Create Your Own Photo Blog:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Is Changing Our Lives'
From the advent of electronic communications, there's been talk about how the world has been shrinking. Frances Cairncross, senior editor for the Economist, makes her case from an economical standpoint: The growing ease and speed of communication is creating a world where the miles have little to do with our ability to work or interact together. Cairncross predicts that it won't be long before people organize globally on the basis of language and three basic time shifts--one for the Americas, one for Europe, and one for East Asia and Australia. Much work that can be done on a computer can be done from anywhere. Workers can code software in one part of the world and pass it to a company hundreds of miles away that will assemble the code for marketing. And with workers able to earn a living from anywhere, countries may find themselves competing for citizens as people relocate for reasons ranging from lower taxes to nicer weather. Cairncross discusses about 30 major changes likely to result from these trends, including greater self-policing of businesses, an unavoidable loss of personal privacy, and a diminishing need for countries to want emigration. [via]
More editions of The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Del.icio.us Mashups'
More editions of Del.icio.us Mashups:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software'
An individual ant, like an individual neuron, is just about as dumb as can be. Connect enough of them together properly, though, and you get spontaneous intelligence. Web pundit Steven Johnson explains what we know about this phenomenon with a rare lucidity in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. Starting with the weird behavior of the semi-colonial organisms we call slime molds, Johnson details the development of increasingly complex and familiar behavior among simple components: cells, insects, and software developers all find their place in greater schemes.
Most game players, alas, live on something close to day-trader time, at least when they're in the middle of a game--thinking more about their next move than their next meal, and usually blissfully oblivious to the ten- or twenty-year trajectory of software development. No one wants to play with a toy that's going to be fun after a few decades of tinkering--the toys have to be engaging now, or kids will find other toys.
Johnson has a knack for explaining complicated and counterintuitive ideas cleverly without stealing the scene. Though we're far from fully understanding how complex behavior manifests from simple units and rules, our awareness that such emergence is possible is guiding research across disciplines. Readers unfamiliar with the sciences of complexity will find Emergence an excellent starting point, while those who were chaotic before it was cool will appreciate its updates and wider scope. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing'
More editions of Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Firefox Hacks: Tips & Tools for Next-Generation Web Browsing'
More editions of Firefox Hacks: Tips & Tools for Next-Generation Web Browsing:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Flickr Hacks'
More editions of Flickr Hacks:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock down Culture and Control Creativity'
From "the most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet era" ("The New Yorker"), a landmark manifesto about the genuine closing of the American mind.
Lawrence Lessig could be called a cultural environmentalist. One of America's most original and influential public intellectuals, his focus is the social dimension of creativity: how creative work builds on the past and how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and technologies. In his two previous books, Code and The Future of Ideas, Lessig concentrated on the destruction of much of the original promise of the Internet. Now, in Free Culture, he widens his focus to consider the diminishment of the larger public domain of ideas. In this powerful wake-up call he shows how short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they're inflicting are poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation.
All creative works-books, movies, records, software, and so on-are a compromise between what can be imagined and what is possible-technologically and legally. For more than two hundred years, laws in America have sought a balance between rewarding creativity and allowing the borrowing from which new creativity springs. The original term of copyright set by the Constitution in 1787 was seventeen years. Now it is closer to two hundred. Thomas Jefferson considered protecting the public against overly long monopolies on creative works an essential government role. What did he know that we've forgotten?
Lawrence Lessig shows us that while new technologies always lead to new laws, never before have the big cultural monopolists used the fear created by new technologies, specifically the Internet, to shrink the public domain of ideas, even as the same corporations use the same technologies to control more and more what we can and can't do with culture. As more and more culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, even as laws are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What's at stake is our freedom-freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom to imagine. [via]
More editions of Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock down Culture and Control Creativity:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World'
If The Future of Ideas is bleak, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Author Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor and keen observer of emerging technologies, makes a strong case that large corporations are staging an innovation-stifling power grab while we watch idly. The changes in copyright and other forms of intellectual property protection demanded by the media and software industries have the potential to choke off publicly held material, which Lessig sees as a kind of intellectual commons. He eloquently and persuasively decries this lopsided control of ideas and suggests practical solutions that consider the rights of both creators and consumers, while acknowledging the serious impact of new technologies on old ways of doing business. His proposals would let existing companies make money without using the tremendous advantages of incumbency to eliminate new killer apps before they can threaten the status quo. Readers who want a fair intellectual marketplace would do well to absorb the lessons in The Future of Ideas. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Google Story'
"Here is the story behind one of the most remarkable Internet successes of our time. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, the book takes you inside the creation and growth of a company whose name is a favorite brand and a standard verb recognized around the world. Its stock is worth more than General Motors' and Ford's combined, its staff eats for free in a dining room that used to be run by the Grateful Dead's former chef, and its employees traverse the firm's colorful Silicon Valley campus on scooters and inline skates. THE GOOGLE STORY is the definitive account of the populist media company powered by the world's most advanced technology that in a few short years has revolutionized access to information about everything for everybody everywhere. In 1998, Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, "change the world" through a search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free. While the company has done exactly that in more than one hundred languages, Google's quest continues as it seeks to add millions of library books, television broadcasts, and more to its searchable database. Readers will learn about the amazing business acumen and computer wizardry that started the company on its astonishing course; the secret network of computers delivering lightning-fast search results; the unorthodox approach that has enabled it to challenge Microsoft's dominance and shake up Wall Street. Even as it rides high, Google wrestles with difficult choices that will enable it to continue expanding while sustaining the guiding vision of its founders' mantra: DO NO EVIL." [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Greasemonkey Hacks'
More editions of Greasemonkey Hacks:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hackers and Painters'
"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences. " --from Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham
We are living in the computer age, in a world increasingly designed and engineered by computer programmers and software designers, by people who call themselves hackers. Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?
Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.
Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls "an intellectual Wild West."
The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.
More editions of Hackers and Painters:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Hacking Myspace: Customizations and Mods to Make Myspace Your Space'
More editions of Hacking Myspace: Customizations and Mods to Make Myspace Your Space:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Head First Design Patterns'
You're not alone. At any given moment, somewhere in the world someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. You know you don't want to reinvent the wheel (or worse, a flat tire), so you look to Design Patterns--the lessons learned by those who've faced the same problems. With Design Patterns, you get to take advantage of the best practices and experience of others, so that you can spend your time on...something else. Something more challenging. Something more complex. Something more fun. You want to learn about the patterns that matter--why to use them, when to use them, how to use them (and when NOT to use them). But you don't just want to see how patterns look in a book, you want to know how they look "in the wild". In their native environment. In other words, in real world applications. You also want to learn how patterns are used in the Java API, and how to exploit Java's built-in pattern support in your own code. You want to learn the real OO design principles and why everything your boss told you about inheritance might be wrong (and what to do instead). You want to learn how those principles will help the next time you're up a creek without a design pattern. Most importantly, you want to learn the "secret language" of Design Patterns so that you can hold your own with your co-worker (and impress cocktail party guests) when he casually mentions his stunningly clever use of Command, Facade, Proxy, and Factory in between sips of a martini. You'll easily counter with your deep understanding of why Singleton isn't as simple as it sounds, how the Factory is so often misunderstood, or on the real relationship between Decorator, Facade and Adapter. With Head First Design Patterns, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking Decorator is something from the "Trading Spaces" show. Best of all, in a way that won't put you to sleep! We think your time is too important (and too short) to spend it struggling with academic texts. [via]
More editions of Head First Design Patterns:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations'
More editions of The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Home Hacking Projects For Geeks'
Take a geek and a PC, add one soldering iron, a home, and a copy of Home Hacking Projects for Geeks, and you'll give new meaning to the term, "home improvement." From fearless neophytes to tool-wielding masterminds, the home hacker in any geek will find new inspiration and plenty of hands-on guidance to take on a variety of home-transforming projects once relegated to the world of sci-fi.
This fun new guide combines creativity with electricity and power tools to achieve cool--and sometimes even practical--home automation projects. Never again will you have to flip a light switch when you enter a room or use a key to open your front door. With a few off-the-shelf devices, some homemade hardware, and a little imagination, you can be living in your own high-tech habitat.
Home Hacking Projects for Geeks shows hackers of all ability levels how to take on a wide range of projects, from the relatively small but energy-conscious automating of light switches, to building home theaters using Windows or Linux-based PCs, to more complicated projects like building home security systems that rival those offered by professional security consultants. Each project includes a conceptual diagram, a "What You Need List" and a small "Project Stats" section that describes the relative difficulty, time involved, and cost of the project. What's more, each project is a workable, practical way to improve your home--something unique that you can customize for your individual needs.
The thirteen projects in Home Hacking Projects for Geeks are divided into three categories: Home Automation, Home Entertainment Systems, and Security, and include projects such as:
More editions of Home Hacking Projects For Geeks:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail'
In The Innovator's Dilemma, author Clayton M Christensen shows what the Honda Supercub, Intel's 8088 processor, and hydraulic excavators have in common. They are all examples of disruptive technologies that helped to redefine the competitive landscape of their respective markets. These products did not come about as the result of successful companies carrying out sound business practices in established markets. Christensen shows how these and other products cut into the low end of the marketplace and eventually evolved to displace high-end competitors and their reigning technologies.
At the heart of The Innovator's Dilemma is how a successful company with established products keeps from being pushed aside by newer, cheaper products that will, over time, get better and become a serious threat. Christensen writes that even the best-managed companies, in spite of their attention to customers and continual investment in new technology, are susceptible to failure no matter what the industry, be it hard drives or consumer retailing. Succinct and clearly written, The Innovator's Dilemma is an important book that belongs on every manager's bookshelf. --Harry C Edwards [via]
More editions of The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate'
Steven Johnson turns the tables on the way we consider our computer interfaces. While many discussions focus on how interfaces help us work by adapting to our ways of thinking and our real-world metaphors, Johnson jumps from there to look at how our thinking and world view are altered by our computer interfaces.
He begins with the simple: The mouse improved the spatial nature of our computers by letting us move, by the proxy of our pointers, within the screen. The windows metaphor made cyberspace a 3-D space. And while we tend to think about the graphical nature of interfaces, Johnson also explores the textual side and how it has changed the way we work with the written word.
Interface Culture then goes on to show how, with each advance in technology, the interface shapes our perceptions in new ways. Where mice and windows turned the computing world into cyberspace, agents have created a perception of software as personality. On the larger scale, Johnson sees these tools, originally built on noncyber metaphors, as creating, in their turn, a new set of metaphors for looking at the rest of the world. And while he finds it exciting, he spends considerable time on such shortcomings in our approach to interfacing: what he considers the excessive emphasis on graphics elements at the cost of anything textual. Johnson, who is the editor of the cerebral Feed Web site and whom Newsweek called one of the most influential people in cyberspace, has written an intelligent book about interface design, its relationship to the real world, and how it affects our perception of worlds both cyber and physical. [via]
More editions of Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate:

› Find signed collectible books: 'An Introduction to Search Engines and Web Navigation'
More editions of An Introduction to Search Engines and Web Navigation:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See'
More editions of The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See:
› Find signed collectible books: 'La economia Long Tail/ The Long Tail: De Los Mercados De Masas Al Triunfo De Lo Minoritario/ Why The Future of Business Is Selling Less of More'
What happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone?
"The Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google.
However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know.
The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of what's commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.
[via]More editions of La economia Long Tail/ The Long Tail: De Los Mercados De Masas Al Triunfo De Lo Minoritario/ Why The Future of Business Is Selling Less of More:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Learning Perl'
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]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Learning Perl : Making Easy Things Easy and Hard Things Possible'
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.
More editions of Learning Perl : Making Easy Things Easy and Hard Things Possible:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Linked: The New Science of Networks'
More editions of Linked: The New Science of Networks:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life'
How is the human brain like the AIDS epidemic? Ask physicist Albert-László Barabási and he'll explain them both in terms of networks of individual nodes connected via complex but understandable relationships. Linked: The New Science of Networks is his bright, accessible guide to the fundamentals underlying neurology, epidemiology, Internet traffic, and many other fields united by complexity.
Barabási's gift for concrete, nonmathematical explanations and penchant for eccentric humor would make the book thoroughly enjoyable even if the content weren't engaging. But the results of Barabási's research into the behavior of networks are deeply compelling. Not all networks are created equal, he says, and he shows how even fairly robust systems like the Internet could be crippled by taking out a few super-connected nodes, or hubs. His mathematical descriptions of this behavior are helping doctors, programmers, and security professionals design systems better suited to their needs. Linked presents the next step in complexity theory--from understanding chaos to practical applications. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More'
What happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone?
"The Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google.
However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know.
The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of what's commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.
[via]More editions of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Loosely Coupled: The Missing Pieces of Web Services'
More editions of Loosely Coupled: The Missing Pieces of Web Services:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Make: Technology On Your Own Time'
If you like to tweak, disassemble, re-create, and invent cool new uses for technology, you'll love MAKE our new quarterly publication for the inquisitive do-it-yourselfer.
Every issue is packed with projects to help you make the most of all the technology in your life. Everything from home entertainment systems, to laptops, to a host of PDAs is fair game. If there's a way to hack it, tweak it, bend it, or remix it, you will find out about it in MAKE.
This isn't another gadget magazine. MAKE focuses on cool things you can do to make technology work the way you want it to. The publication is inspired by our bestselling Hacks series books but with a twist. MAKE is a mook (rhymes with book). We ve combined the excitement, unexpectedness, and visual appeal of a magazine with the permanence and in-depth instructiveness of a how-to book.
Whether you're a geek or hacker who delights in creating new uses for technology, or a Saturday afternoon tinkerer who loves to get his hands dirty, you'll keep every issue of MAKE on your bookshelf for years to come. Our premier issue, available in February 2005, includes 220 pages packed with tips and tricks, including:
Every quarter, MAKE will contain a unique set of innovative ideas and creations for a variety of new technologies, including mobile devices, in-car computers, web services, digital media, wireless and home networking, and computer hardware. Visit MAKE's web site: make.oreilly.com.
More editions of Make: Technology On Your Own Time:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Make: Technology on Your Time'
If you like to tweak, disassemble, re-create, and invent cool new uses for technology, you'll love MAKE our quarterly publication for the inquisitive do-it-yourselfer.
Every issue is packed with projects to help you make the most of all the technology in your life. Everything from home entertainment systems, to laptops, to a host of PDAs is fair game. If there's a way to hack it, tweak it, bend it, or remix it, you will find out about it in MAKE.
This isn't another gadget magazine. MAKE focuses on cool things you can do to make technology work the way you want it to. The publication is inspired by our bestselling Hacks series books but with a twist. MAKE is a mook (rhymes with book). We've combined the excitement, unexpectedness, and visual appeal of a magazine with the permanence and in-depth instructiveness of a how-to book.
Whether you're a geek or hacker who delights in creating new uses for technology, or a Saturday afternoon tinkerer who loves to get his hands dirty, you'll keep every issue of MAKE on your bookshelf for years to come.
More editions of Make: Technology on Your Time:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk With Customers'
From the creator of the number one business blog comes a powerful exploration of how, and why, businesses had better be blogging: Naked Conversations. According to experts Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, blogs offer businesses something that has long been lacking in their communication with customers -- meaningful dialogue. Devoid of corporate-speak and empty promises, business blogs can humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line. The authors use more than 50 case histories to explain why blogging is an efficient and credible method of business communication. You'll find yourself excited about the possibilities blogs present after reading just a few pages. Discover how: Prominent business leaders, including Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, Bob Lutz from General Motors, and Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, are beginning to use blogs to connect with their customers in new ways. Blogging has changed the rules of communication and competition. You can launch an effective blogging strategy and the reasons why you should. Featuring a foreword by Tom Peters, this is a resource you and your business can't do without. [via]
More editions of Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk With Customers:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Next: The Future Just Happened'
More editions of Next: The Future Just Happened:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Oracle Jdeveloper 3 Handbook'
More editions of Oracle Jdeveloper 3 Handbook:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Perl 5: Pocket Reference'
Revised to cover Perl Version 5.6, this quick reference provides a complete overview of the Perl programming language, all packed into a convenient, carry-around booklet.
This third edition covers:
More editions of Perl 5: Pocket Reference:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Php And Mysql Web Development'
Learning PHP is worth your time because you can do so much with it. Backed by a MySQL database server, the language makes an extraordinary engine for doing server-side scripting on Web sites. PHP and MySQL Web Development aims to unravel the wonderful possibilities of the two title technologies by walking the reader through tutorials, then presenting a series of moderately elaborate example projects. The PHP tutorial will impress anyone coming to the language from simple HTML work, and the MySQL tutorial is adequate for most applications (though it ignores the relational capabilities that appeared in version 4 with the InnoDB table type). If you like to study code (both listings and commentary), you'll appreciate the authors' solutions to common problems, like implementing shopping sites and managing restricted-access rules.
The programming approach of Luke Welling and Laura Thomson is procedural, neglecting the object-oriented capabilities of PHP almost entirely. It's a valid choice, as most PHP code is written in procedural style. As well, they've chosen to build their software around PHP 4.3, which doesn't have as much object-orientation capability of the new version 5 release. Some readers may lament the lack of up-to-date coverage, but others--perhaps serving sites from hosting services that run well-proven PHP 4.x--will appreciate that the authors took time to revise their PHP 4.3 code samples (which should, in most cases, be backward-compatible), rather than writing PHP 5 code for its own sake. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to program with PHP 4.3 (and its predecessors) and store data in a MySQL database. PHP coverage is extensive, covering all capabilities from basic form-handing to Web Services, while MySQL coverage is limited to the essentials of database setup and administration. Elaborate applications--such as a PDF generator and a content-management system--are written in a way that invites learning and adaptation. [via]
More editions of Php And Mysql Web Development:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Podcasting Hacks'
More editions of Podcasting Hacks:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Power Of Many: How the Living Web is Transforming Politics, Business, and Everyday Life'
More editions of The Power Of Many: How the Living Web is Transforming Politics, Business, and Everyday Life:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Practical Internet Groupware'
Drawing on the wealth of experience he accumulated developing internal and external collaboration solutions for BYTE magazine, author Jon Udell provides a thorough guide to building networked tools for collaboration. Unlike many books that are tied to a given language or protocol, Practical Internet Groupware delivers useful code examples in several languages, including Perl (primary language), server-side Java, and XML. Protocols discussed include NNTP, IMAP, HTTP, POP3, and SMTP.
The first section covers general use and policies as they relate to groupware. Administrators and end users will benefit from the references to NNTP messages in Collabra and Outlook, scoped discussion groups, and packaging messages and discussion threads. Udell also includes many tips and usability pointers. When discussing how to build, index, and navigate a document database, he delineates ways to create rich navigation that incorporate topic-sensitive and sequential navigation using modular Perl examples.
Many of the solutions that are presented address custom software that implements open standards. One of the most powerful solutions discusses a lightweight, Perl-based local HTTP server, called dhttp. Creating, using, extending, and integrating this server are capably covered by the author, and it is convincingly presented as a flexible means of distributing information.
As a mark of distinction, the book approaches problems from multiple angles. With security as an example, the author discusses the implementation of encryption for dhttp and notes the legal issues surrounding the use of SSLeay. In essence, his example becomes an alternative way to implement a secure channel using the Blowfish encryption algorithm.
The book contains quite a bit of useful code, but like most (perhaps all) O'Reilly books, it does not include a companion CD-ROM. Appendix A discusses where to get the code and modules (primarily on the author's Web site), but receiving this high-quality source code on a well-organized CD-ROM would increase the value of the book.
For those interested in creating a document database and integrating it with HTTP and NNTP, this book provides the background, code, integration, and deployment information you will need. --John Keogh
Topics covered: Using groupware, policy, culture, and implementation; creating a collection of documents that can be used as a database (docbase); integrating docbases with a variety of servers, including NNTP and HTTP; security, authentication, and encryption; integration; creating a lightweight HTTP server; deploying INN, Microsoft NNTP service, and Netscape Collabra Server; indexing, navigating, and searching; IMAP, POP3, and SMTP. The source code is primarily in Perl, with some server-side Java and C++. XML and HTML are used for many examples, and using XML and XSL is also discussed. Appendices include information on where to get the code and modules that are presented in the book and Internet RFCs. [via]
More editions of Practical Internet Groupware:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Professional Web 2.0 Programming'
More editions of Professional Web 2.0 Programming:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Programming Perl'
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]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Programming Perl'
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"
More editions of Programming Perl:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Programming Vb .Net: A Guide for Experienced Programmers'
In Programming VB .NET: A Guide for Experienced Programmers, authors Gary Cornell and Jonathan Morrison carefully explain the exciting features of Visual Basic .NET. Since VB .NET is, for all practical purposes, a whole new language even for the most experienced Visual Basic programmers, developers need to think differently about many familiar topics. Cornell and Morrison are there to help you with careful discussions of each topic.
Cornell and Morrison write from the point of view of the experienced programmer, with constant references to the changes from earlier versions of VB. Developers learn how to use VB .NET for database programming through ADO.NET and web programming through ASP.NET. After reading Programming VB .NET: A Guide for Experienced Programmers, developers will have a firm grasp of the exciting VB .NET language and its uses in creating powerful .NET applications.
All experienced programmers wishing to take advantage of the amazing powers of VB .NET will benefit from this book's careful treatment of fundamental topics, including inheritance, interfaces, and exception handling, as well as all the powerful newer features, such as stream-based I/O and true multithreading.
[via]More editions of Programming Vb .Net: A Guide for Experienced Programmers:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rough Guide to MySpace'
More editions of The Rough Guide to MySpace:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Ruby in a Nutshell'
More editions of Ruby in a Nutshell:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Ruby in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference'
More editions of Ruby in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Search: How Google And Its Rivals Revwrote the Rules of Business And Transformed Our Culture'
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]
More editions of The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Secrets of the Super Net Searchers: The Reflections, Revelations and Hard-Won Wisdom of 35 of the World's Top Internet Researchers'
More editions of Secrets of the Super Net Searchers: The Reflections, Revelations and Hard-Won Wisdom of 35 of the World's Top Internet Researchers:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age'
You may be only six degrees away from Kevin Bacon, but would he let you borrow his car? It depends on the structures within the network that links you. When the power goes out, when we find that a stranger knows someone we know, when dot-com stocks soar in price, networks are evident. In Six Degrees, sociologist Duncan Watts examines networks like these: what they are, how they're being studied, and what we can use them for. To illustrate the often complicated mathematics that describe such structures, Watts uses plenty of examples from life, without which this book would quickly move beyond a general science readership. Small chapters make each thought-provoking conclusion easy to swallow, though some are hard to digest. For instance, in a short bit on "coercive externalities," Watts sums up sociological research showing that:
"Conversations concerning politics displayed a consistent pattern .... On election day, the strongest predictor of electoral success was not which party an individual privately supported but which party he or she expected would win."Six Degrees attempts to help readers understand the new and exciting field of networks and complexity. While considerably more demanding than a general book like The Tipping Point, it offers readers a snapshot of a riveting moment in science, when understanding things like disease epidemics and the stock market seems almost within our reach. --Therese Littleton [via]
More editions of Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web'
David Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined does not merely celebrate the World Wide Web; it attempts to make a case that the institution has completely remodeled many of the world's self-perceptions. The book does so entertainingly, if not convincingly, and is a lively collection of epigrammatic phrases (the Web is "'place-ial' but not spatial"; "on the Web everyone will be famous to 15 people"), as well as illustrations of these changes. There are intriguing assertions: that the Web is "broken on purpose" and that its many pockets of erroneous information and its available forums for disputing, say, manufacturers' hyperbole, let people feel more comfortable with their own inherent imperfections. At other times the book seems stale: it declares that the Web has disrupted long-held axioms about time, space, and knowledge retrieval and that it has dramatically rearranged notions of community and individuality. Weinberger's analysis, though occasionally facile and too relentlessly optimistic and overstated, is surely destined to be the subject of furious debate in chat rooms the cyber-world over. --H. O'Billovich [via]
More editions of Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution'
From Tokyo to Helsinki, Manhattan to Manila, Howard Rheingold takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift-a shift he predicts will be as dramatic as the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s. The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and wireless-paging and Internet-access devices that will allow us to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime.From the amusing ("Lovegetty" devices in Japan that light up when a person with the right date-potential characteristics appears in the vicinity) to the extraordinary (the overthrow of a repressive regime in the Philippines by political activists who mobilized by forwarding text messages via cell phones), Rheingold gives examples of the fundamentally new ways in which people are already engaging in group or collective action. He also considers the dark side of this phenomenon, such as the coordination of terrorist cells, threats to privacy, and the ability to incite violent behavior.Applying insights from sociology, artificial intelligence, engineering, and anthropology, Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the brave new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism. At the same time, he reminds us that, as with other technological revolutions, the real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, adapt to it, and ultimately use it to transform themselves, their communities, and their institutions. [via]
More editions of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution:

› Find signed collectible books: 'UbiComp 2006:Ubiquitous Computing: 8th International Conference, UbiComp 2006, Orange County, CA, USA, September 17-21, 2006 Proceedings'
More editions of UbiComp 2006:Ubiquitous Computing: 8th International Conference, UbiComp 2006, Orange County, CA, USA, September 17-21, 2006 Proceedings:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Videoblogging'
It's the Ultimate Reality Show -- Yours
Amazing, isn't it? You're on equal footing with multibillion-dollar TVand movie producers. Videoblogging lets your audience see your cause, your story, and your personal creations -- and can be distributed to anyone with Internet access. Since the videoblogging community is all about sharing, more than 20 experts have kicked in tips and ideas to make this book the ultimate videoblogging crash course. So head for the checkout, grab fresh batteries for your video camera, and let's get started!
Think Big
A few of the things you'll learn to do:
More editions of Videoblogging:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Web-Based Instruction: A Guide for Libraries'
Expanding on the popular, practical how-to guide for public, academic, school, and special libraries, technology expert Susan Sharpless Smith offers library instructors the confidence to take Web-based instruction into their own hands. Smith has thoroughly updated Web-Based Instruction: A Guide for Libraries to include new tools and trends, including current browsers, access methods, hardware, and software. She also supplies tips to secure project funding and provides strategic guidance for all types of libraries. This completely revised edition also
More editions of Web-Based Instruction: A Guide for Libraries:

› Find signed collectible books: 'What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging And Podcasting: Real-life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere'
More editions of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging And Podcasting: Real-life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere:
› Find signed collectible books: 'What the World Needs Now'
Ever wanted a chair that converts into a rowing machine? Sunglasses that serve as a wallet? A car with a sundeck so you can work on your tan on those long road trips? Well, inventor and illustrator Steven Johnson has designed these marvels and many, many more, spurred on by a truly insatiable imagination. His wacky, wonderful concepts could very well change the world-that is, if someone was ever bold enough to build them. From clothing to dining technology, home furnishings to appliances, and gardening gadgets to survival gear, WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW is a sourcebook of revolutionary designs that prove how far our techno-culture has yet to go. Ģ Includes a three-step plan for inventing useful and useless things. [via]
More editions of What the World Needs Now:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future'
Lawyers. Accountants. Radiologists. Software engineers. That's what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up. But Mom and Dad were wrong. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of "left brain" dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which "right brain" qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate. That's the argument at the center of this provocative and original book, which uses the two sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the contours of our times.
In the tradition of Emotional Intelligence and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Daniel H. Pink offers a fresh look at what it takes to excel. A Whole New Mind reveals the six essential aptitudes on which professional success and personal fulfillment now depend, and includes a series of hands-on exercises culled from experts around the world to help readers sharpen the necessary abilities. This book will change not only how we see the world but how we experience it as well.
More editions of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything'
In just the last few years, traditional collaborationin a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention centerhas been superseded by collaborations on an astronomical scale.
Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the heaving growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.
A brilliant guide to one of the most profound changes of our time, Wikinomics challenges our most deeply-rooted assumptions about business and will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to understand competitiveness in the twenty-first century.
Based on a $9 million research project led by bestselling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing the human genome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding a cure for disease, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, or even building motorcycles. You'll read about:
" Rob McEwen, the Goldcorp, Inc. CEO who used open source tactics and an online competition to save his company and breathe new life into an old-fashioned industry.
" Flickr, Second Life, YouTube, and other thriving online communities that transcend social networking to pioneer a new form of collaborative production.
" Mature companies like Procter & Gamble that cultivate nimble, trust-based relationships with external collaborators to form vibrant business ecosystems.
An important look into the future, Wikinomics will be your road map for doing business in the twenty-first century. [via]
More editions of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wisdom Of Crowds'
In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliantbetter at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.
With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world. [via]
More editions of The Wisdom Of Crowds:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business,Economies, Societies and Nations'
No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken was wrong.
In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliantbetter at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.
This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives. With seemingly boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, economic behaviorism, artificial intelligence, military history and political theory to show just how this principle operates in the real world.
Despite the sophistication of his arguments, Surowiecki presents them in a wonderfully entertaining manner. The examples he uses are all down-to-earth, surprising, and fun to ponder. Why is the line in which youre standing always the longest? Why is it that you can buy a screw anywhere in the world and it will fit a bolt bought ten-thousand miles away? Why is network television so awful? If you had to meet someone in Paris on a specific day but had no way of contacting them, when and where would you meet? Why are there traffic jams? Whats the best way to win money on a game show? Why, when you walk into a convenience store at 2:00 A.M. to buy a quart of orange juice, is it there waiting for you? What do Hollywood mafia movies have to teach us about why corporations exist?
The Wisdom of Crowds is a brilliant but accessible biography of an idea, one with important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, conduct our business, and think about our world.
More editions of The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business,Economies, Societies and Nations:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century'
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists. [via]
More editions of The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Yahoo! Hacks'
Yahoo! took the world by storm in the 1990s as a one-of-a-kind, searchable list of interesting web sites. But ten years later, it has expanded into a department store overflowing with useful and innovative tools and services-from email, blogging, social networking, and instant messaging, to news, financial markets, shopping, movie and TV listings, and much more. Today's Yahoo! keeps you connected with every aspect of your life and every corner of the Web.
Yahoo! Hacks shows you how to use, expand, personalize, and tweak Yahoo! in ways you never dreamed possible. You'll learn how to:
Whether you want to become a power searcher, news monger, super shopper, or innovative web developer, Yahoo! Hacks provides the tools to take you further than you ever thought possible.
More editions of Yahoo! Hacks:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Blink Inteligencia Intuitiva?/blink.: Por Que Sabemos La Verdad En Dos Segundos/ the Power of Thinking Without Thinking'
In Blink, bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant ¯in the blink of an eye¯ that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? [via]
More editions of Blink Inteligencia Intuitiva?/blink.: Por Que Sabemos La Verdad En Dos Segundos/ the Power of Thinking Without Thinking:
› Find signed collectible books: 'La economia Long Tail/ The Long Tail: De Los Mercados De Masas Al Triunfo De Lo Minoritario/ Why The Future of Business Is Selling Less of More'
More editions of La economia Long Tail/ The Long Tail: De Los Mercados De Masas Al Triunfo De Lo Minoritario/ Why The Future of Business Is Selling Less of More:
› Find signed collectible books: 'La Tierra Es Plana / The World Is Flat: Breve Historia del Mundo Globalizado del Siglo XXI / A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century'
Edicion en español [via]
More editions of La Tierra Es Plana / The World Is Flat: Breve Historia del Mundo Globalizado del Siglo XXI / A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century:
