Computing Internet Books

I learned more in this book, and more in depth, in a chapter then I have in any other resource for C++.(Don't worry, I have read much more then just a chapter.) Prata will cover everything from how large a data type is in memory to the most advanced topics like inheritance, and all very well explained! I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn C++.

I bought this book because I first learned how to program using 'The Waite Group's BASIC Programming Primer' when I was 13 and figured this would bring things full circle. Although by a different author, I hoped the strong legacy left by TWGBPP would compel this volume to find a similar style and purpose. To a high degree it did just that.

In what may be both a word of caution to old hackers and encouragement to beginners, this book is very thorough in what it does cover. The five W's (none related to George) are addressed nearly with individual character-level granularity when examining code. It takes great pains to explain why you need a 'main' function, for example, and the specific significance of terminating (not separating) statements with a semicolon.

While this degree of explanation does become nearly maddening if you've programmed anything (even BASIC) before, it does lend a degree of insight into the language that may otherwise be missed in more casual tomes. The treatment of such things often taken for granted without explanation is what lends the book as a powerful refresher for teachers. At the same time, such long-winded dialog covering the most basic of functions and their syntax (as well as the mechanics of syntax applicable throughout the entire language) introduces C and C++ to the absolute beginner at a rate that keeps the level of fear to a minimum.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a true understanding of the C and C++ languages, and who prefers to enter the pool one step at a time instead of bring thrown in headlong.

but not exactly a good one either. i have just completed chapter four, ~70 pages in length, covering structures, enumerators, arrays, and pointers, among other topics.

there are only 9 exercises for this material. 9!

deitel and deitel, although not without its own numerous demerits (that some material is poorly explained being among the worst), would, for this quantity of material have 25 exercises, some of them difficult, but many of them interesting.

i don't think one can learn to program (which this book purports to do) on such a limited, generally simplistic, diet of exercises.

i would say this work is overly dense with information, but limited in instructional value.

tlt

This book teaches you C++ from the ground up. If you want to learn C++, get the latest edition of this book, whatever it may be (it may be this book at the moment.)

My son's a grad student in Digital Production Arts (DPA) at Clemson University and has a BFA in Fine Arts. Because the DPA program is by nature computer programming-intensive, he has to take several prerequisite programming courses. I bought him the C Primer when he was struggling with that course and it made a huge difference. So I bought him the C++ Primer Plus because it was by the same author. For those for whom computer programming does not come naturally, these books by Stephen Prata are a lifesaver. I highly recommend them.

As a relative novice to outlook programming, this book took me through all the steps in a clear an concise way. I've bought several books on the subject before, but somehow one or more important issues were always left out. Not in this book.
If you want to automate the way you work with Outlook without having to find out everything yourself buy this book. Sue Mosher's website is great too, by the way, and offers a treasure chest of tip, code and a very good forum.

I was already doing my own Google advertising when I got this book thinking that I will learn a quite a bit of new things from this book. Not so. If you took the time to read Google's own information and FAQ, you would have understood 90% or more of the stuff. I found the screen shots in the book particularly annoying, the prints are so small and are printed in very light colored ink that they are unreadable. You can't read this book without being in front of your computer to follow along each screen to make sense.

Like most of the O'Reilly books, this is very well written and a really good resource for tips and hints. It is not as good for a beginner, but is good for people that need a good resource to go to the next level.

It is estimated that Google ads reach 80% of all Internet users. No other advertising system or promotional scheme (including spam campaigns) can boast such coverage. Cashing in on Google ads either as an advertiser through AdWords or by getting paid by the click for hosting Google ads through Adsense is a pretty quick and simple process.

Google Advertising Tools is meant for the beginner advertiser or new website owner who would like to make a little extra money through hosting Google ads. This book takes the reader through the whats, the whys, the hows, and the wheres of these options. Much of the more complicated parts of these processes are even detailed step by step complete with illustrations of what the reader will see at the website. I do suggest this book to those new to Google ads. However, I also think that those already participating in these programs with find a few helpful hints and tips, particularly in the optimizing sections.

if you are interested on how search engines work this a book you can start

This book was OK, I mean it has some good information but you can find most of it online so it is more of a resource book instead of a book having especially valuable information.

Im glad I bought it cause I now have a resource book on the shelf and dont have to search online and I often have limited time.

If you have the time to research online then do that, otherwise by this book.

This bundled set of books contains just about everything it is possible to know about Windows Server 2003. Well, maybe not everything, but everything you can include in four thousand six hundred and fifty pages, yes, 4650 pages.

In one slipcase, there are eight separate Microsoft manuals:

Windows Internals (4th Edition)
Windows Group Policy guide
Windows Security Resource Kit (2nd Edition)
Windows Server 2003 Performance Guide
Windows Server 2003 Troubleshooting Guide
Windows Registry Guide (2nd Edition)
Windows Administrator's Automation Toolkit
Windows Server 2003 Tools and Digital Resources (on CD)

The CD contains more material than the rest of the books put together including (guaranteed to be true as it contains all of the manuals just listed in eBook form),
More than 300 esential tools and utilities,
And collections of Technical References on:

Active Director
Core Operating System
Group Policy
High Availability and Scalability
Networking Collection
Storage Technologies
Windows Security

It would be pointless to talk about the contents of each book here as they are already described under their individual titles. What you get in the bundle is: lower price than when purchased individually, extra material on the CD, and a cardboard slipcase to keep them in.

The 2003 performance guide was probably one book that's worth the price of this entire package. Mark Friedman, the author of Windows 2000 Performance Guide, wrote this book for resource kit. That explained why he never published a follow-up of his famous 2000 performance book. The other books in the kit were also extremely helpful. This is THE set of reference book to get for authoritative Windows 2003 information. Also included is a disc with all the ebook versions of everything, including some bonus books not in the resource kit. So stop Googling for unreliable second hand information, and get your stingy boss to cough up the money for this must have tool.

Despite the new title, Wireshark & Ethereal Protocol Analyzer Toolkit (WEPAT) is a second edition of Ethereal Packet Sniffing (EPS). I reviewed that book almost three years ago, in May 2004. WEPAT has replaced all of the earlier screen captures with Wireshark replacements. Unfortunately, WEPAT is largely a repeat of EPS, really only featuring a new wireless chapter. If you own EPS, you don't need to upgrade. If you don't own EPS but want to learn how to use Wireshark, I recommend buying WEPAT.

One new feature of WEPAT that helped me in production work was the coverage of Tshark statistics in ch 9. I used the advice for displaying top destinations to help me better understand traffic distribution in an unfamiliar network. I also liked the new wireless section, Ch 6, especially the coverage of protocols. The tip that packet details could be launched in a new window via View -> Show Packet in New Window was also cool. I liked the regex summary in Ch 5. I thought it was a great idea to explain why "not tcp.port == 80" is the right way to avoid all traffic where port 80 TCP is the source or destination port.

Three aspects of WEPAT bugged me. First, WEPAT includes updates to nearly all chapters. In adding material, however, the authors ended up repeating certain topics all over the place. Detecting remote hosts operating NICs in promiscuous mode (a nearly hopeless endeavor in reality) appears in Ch 1, Ch 2, and AGAIN in Ch 4. Ch 2 repeats many of the same concepts from Ch 1, like protection against sniffers and other sniffing tools. Small tools packaged with Wireshark like Tshark, Editcap, Mergecap, and Text2pcap are covered in Ch 2 and Ch 9. There is no need for all this redundancy.

The second disappointment in WEPAT is the inclusion of really old material. SubSeven, last updated four years ago, is called "one of the most common Windows backdoor trojans" (p 377). NetBus (last active in 1999), BackOrifice (2000), T0rn (2000), and Rst.b (2002) are other outdated programs mentioned in WEPAT. Ch 7 uses SQL Slammer (2003), Code Red (2001) and Ramen (2001) as examples of malware for analysis. To add insult to injury, the Wireshark screen captures for displaying relevant traffic are all far too small and fuzzy to be helpful.

Third, I didn't learn that much reading WEPAT. I am not a Wireshark ninja, but I didn't see much in WEPAT that differed from EPS. For example, I would really have liked more emphasis placed on using Wireshark display filters to control capture at the command line using the -R switch. That is a really powerful technique that was mentioned only in passing on p 177. On a minor note, Ch 4 was way too long; at 90 pages, it seems reasonable to not try to cover everything in a single chapter.

Overall, you need to read WEPAT if you're a Wireshark newbie to intermediary user and you don't have a copy of EPS. If you have EPS, you've already got all the relevant information you need in WEPAT. In fact, the wireless sniffing coverage in 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Ed by Matthew Gast is better. Add that to EPS and then wait to see wait to see what a third edition Syngress Wireshark book looks like.

For the most part this book is an updated version of Ethereal Packet Sniffing. The title has been changed to more accurately reflect that it's about using Wireshark and not so much about analyzing traffic (although that's covered some), and also to denote that the project changed the name of the software recently. That said, it's an improvement over Ethereal Packet Sniffing with some new material and some reorganization.

Chapter 1 is an intro to network analysis, specifically with packet sniffing. It's very cursory, and they could do a better job of teaching this subject, but honestly that's a whole book unto itself and years of practice. The chapter is reasonably comprehensive and accurate.

Chapter 2 introduces Wireshark and how to begin using it. This chapter is very short given what it says it will cover, but most of that is brought up in the following chapters. There's a brief bit about Wireshark security, but again it's too cursory (2 paragraphs for a program that ha sa constant stream of security issues). Also, the authors keep calling it Etehreal in places and Wireshark in others. This inconsistency doesn't instill a great amount of trust in me that everything was reviewed well.

Chapter 3 covers getting and installing Wireshark for Windows, Linux, OS X, and how to build it from source. It also covers packet capture drivers (ie on Windows). A very straightforward, direct chapter.

Using Wireshark is the next chapter, and this is where we start the meat of the book. It's about 80 pages long and covers the UI and the command line options. The screen captures are better than the previous version of the book (and they often times use just a portion of the screen), but they could still be improved for legibility and for usefulness. This chapter covers the uncommon graphing and stats sections, and also following streams.

Filters are covered in Chapter 5, and the PCAP and Wireshark filter languages are covered. These are rich languages that allow for complex selectivity, and the chapter is clear and pretty comprehensive.

A new topic is introduced in Chapter 6, specifically wireless sniffing. This is a good addition to the book, and even topics such as decoding EAP and WEP are covered. This is a good, concise overview of the topic of sniffing wireless networks.

Real world packet captures are covered in Chapter 7, which is sadly too short (it could easily be a whole book). Several representative traces are included on the CD ROM that are good to study and review in this chapter. They include Linux worms and Windows malware, and also some coverage of active response packets is given.

Just like the corresponding chapter in Ethereal Packet Sniffing, Chapter 8 covers developing plugins for Wireshark, specifically new protocol decodes. Because Wireshark has a framework to extend, it supports dozens of application and network layer protocols. You can add your favorite new protocol with ease if you follow this chapter. Who knows, you may even get it included. This is a real gem of the book.

Finally, Chapter 9 covers many of the auxiliary programs that are included with Wireshark. These programs let you manage packet traces and marge them or cut them down to size. These are useful even outside of Wireshark if you work with packet traces at all.

This book is a good update to the Ethereal Packet Sniffing book and material. Sadly, in many places the editors didn't do a good job of auditing the book, so there are some mistakes and sometimes even references to the now obsolete name of Ethereal. However, the additions and improvements over the older version make this book worthwhile for anyone who needs to learn how to fully utilize this powerful sniffer.

This has been my definitive VHDL language reference for 6 or 7 years, now. I use it as I would K&R for the C language. It explains all the gory syntactical and structural details of a messy language.

I would agree that this text is not a "synthesis cookbook" for learning the best way to produce logic from code. But I do not think that its the author's goal to do so. He does cover practical examples of applied VHDL which serve as a great reference when I have to remember how to build a testbench.

If you are an engineer, like me, wanting to teach yourself VHDL then this is NOT the book for you. The actual mechanics of how to write VHDL code is lost in all of the doctrine superfluously created by the author. The examples he gives in order to clarify points only serve to make the concepts more mysterious. The book fails to make the connection between the software world and what the results of the language are in hardware. The index is minimal and I found it practically useless. It is an exhaustive work with many exercises, but as for practicality--I give it a big thumbs down.

Too many VHDL books dilute their point by trying to double as logic design texts. The problem is that VHDL is a complex (or "rich") language, and needs an intense focus of its own. This book does the best job I've seen.

I've learned lots of languages, usually one or two a year. I know what to look for. I want a book that lays it all out clearly enough that I can find what I want. That includes complex data types, overloading, and especially configurability. VHDL really does have almost all the capabilities of a C-like language, plus a few more features, and the author has succeeded in making them accessible.

Configurability deserves special attention - it is an explicit part of the VHDL language. It's a pre-Object-Oriented language but was developed when OO ideas were solidfying in the industry. Although it lacks OO flexibility, Ashenden does point out how "use" and "configure" can give a few of the same effects.

Hardware description languages aren't like regular programming languages, and shouldn't be, and can't be. Still, they're not that different, either. Perhaps you're already a good programmer and already comfortable with digital system basics. If so, this may be the book to give you the language knowledge you need with minimal repetition of what you already know.

VHDL is used for a wide variety of things - almost none of them what VHDL was every really meant for. This makes finding a useful text a reference a significant chore. Ashenden sometimes seems to move at a snail's pace - the text is written more as a tutorial than a reference. In some ways this is good, really the syntax of VHDL and the constructs are quite simple. His repeated examples make it clear there really isn't much magic going on. Personally I wish the book was more directed at synthesis - because that's what I use it for - but this text is more directed at the language. So some supplementing of the text will be necessary.

In short, it could be better but I'm not sure how and for my requirements it appears to be about the best the market has to offer.

This book goes into great detail on variable typing, subtyping, and all aspects of behavioral modeling. It's extremely detailed and thourough. If you just want to learn the intricacies of VHDL and only expect to write test benches and behavioral models, this is definitely the book for you. If you're looking for a practical book that will help you to write synthesizable code, look somewhere else. The book does have a 17-page appendix on synthesis, but that's pretty much it. All the "case studies" are behavioral, even the RTL models.

When I purchased this book, I thought I was getting a step-by-step guide for beginners who build websites. Unfortunately, it turns out this book is for the experienced web designer whose looking for more ideas. I found a better book for beginners through the "Dummies" series. Oh yeah, if you can afford it, hire someone to build your website!

This book is an excellent guide to Web design. It is very well written with practical information. The reading is easy and very interesting. I reccommend it very much.

"Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites" is the first book on web design to focus on integrating marketing, customer service, accessibility, and web standards into the design process. It's an accessible, clear, and up-to-date resource on best practices for modern business- and service-oriented websites.

Kevin Potts begins the book by pointing out that the internet is now an essential medium for businesses of all shapes and sizes; at the same time, customers are more sophisticated than in the early days of the internet, and have little patience for poorly designed websites. In order for a company to present an effective presence on the web, it "must deliver beyond customer expectations; better content, sharper design, smarter architecture, and more proactive communication and interaction are all components of websites that produce exceptional results for corporations."

In the first chapter, the author begins by outlining what a company's website should be doing:

* Marketing, selling products, & promoting services
* Providing customer support & company information
* Creating branding & market awareness

He then covers planning, researching, and selling the design (or redesign) within the company, then moves on to a brief overview of platforms and technologies.

The rest of the book proceeds to show the designer how to create an effective and compelling site for his or her client. He covers content creation, accessibility, architecture & navigation; essential sections of a company website such as the Homepage, About page, Products, and Support pages; error pages, print-friendly pages, legal considerations, and SEO; email marketing, RSS, and advertising campaigns and metrics.

This book is an amazing collection of diverse information presented in a clear and concise fashion. It's not intended as an in-depth treatment of any of the subjects he covers--rather it's an invaluable checklist of essential tools and considerations for designing a top-notch company website.

"Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites" has become a valuable addition to my reference library, and it is one that I know I will reach for first when I am planning a new or redesigned business or service website.

"Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites," by Kevin Potts,was first brought to my attention by my wife, Adrienne, a website designer whose business, Cloud Islands, develops business identity plans for internet marketing.

She recommended it to me as an extraordinarily useful text. I've found it particularly readable, including the chapters on platforms, content management, standards-based development, and other topics which normally are either over my head or simply difficult to read.

Potts' chapters on content and SEO are cogent, provide excellent examples, and are as useful as any I've ever read. The book is only several months old, so he is even using illustrations from Google Analytics new web configurations.

It's published by [...], which is a publishing house run by and for web designers.

I don't often recommend books for other people's professional libraries, but this one is proving very useful to me.

Although this book sounds like a "tech" book, it is far from it. It only contains about two pages of actual code total. I highly recommend this book for anyone who runs a small to medium-sized business where you interact with your web design company directly, or any executive who has to interface with the web development team.

It could also be good for web designers who have been AWOL for the last half-decade or more, or people new to the business who want to learn. Although you won't learn any HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, you will learn stuff that no one else has published in one handy volume. Great for a day at the park - leave your laptop at home. I've written a far-more extensive review on my blog, so search for my name if you feel the need to read really long reviews before buying, but if I can save you some time, just take my word for it and buy it if the above describes you.

If you've read about the basics of the semantic web online, you won't get much more from this book. There's only 6 pages devoted to SPARQL, and no mention of RDFa. Later chapters (especially "Ontology Engineering") are thin and weak. You learn the dirt basics, but not how to build anything meaningful with it.

I browsed through this book at my local Borders store and it looked like it was going to offer all of the information I needed. Too bad the seller never shipped the book.

So, I got the 2nd edition of this book (which is out of date now) because I'm a cheap skate and I saw it on Amazon second hand for a rediculously low price (somewhere in the range of $1 - $2). For the most part, it was still pretty relevant. It was released just before Samba 3.0.x was rolled out (well, in that vicinity, anyway), and it does address some of the updates in the 'new' updated version. There were a couple of things that were no longer accurate, so I had to go online and find out how to do it with the latest version of Samba.

Setting up your Samba server is much easier than working with some other services in UNIX/Linux. This book does a good job getting you up and running quickly then showing you some more detailed settings and tweaks. It also shows you how to configure things on the Windows side for various versions (9x/Me/NT/2000/XP).

One of the coolest things is configuring roaming profiles for your various Windows accounts - these let you log into any computer with your username and password and it will load up your system settings (such as desktop background). If you only use Windows XP Home Edition, be warned that you really won't be able to enjoy that much functionality in the networked environment.

This is a very good guide. It brings together information scattered over the net and provides good a deep explanation for many topics that samba administrator need to know.

I was able to configure a samba server that met all my needs after reading only 4 chapters of this book.
I am not an expert but at no time at all did I feel like this book is outdated. Mine, 3rd edition, was focused on samba 3.0.22 -- correct release being 3.0.25.

'Using Samba' by Gerald Carter is the DEFINITIVE Samba reference for all Samaba users and administrators out there in the IT world. Now in its 3rd Edition, this gem of a book/tool takes you through all the necessary steps from setup, configuration, troubleshooting, you name it, it's in this book!! Written in a clear, concise manner, over 400 pages of information is contained within the following 12 chapters and 3 appendixes:

01. An Introduction to Samba
02. Installing Samba on a Unix System
03. Configuring Windows Clients
04. The Samba Configuration File
05. Accounts, Authentication, and Authorization
06. Advanced Disk Shares
07. Printing
08. Name Resolution and Network Browsing
09. Domain Controllers
10. Domain Member Servers
11. Unix Clients
12. Troubleshooting Samba
A. Samba Daemons and Commands
B. Downloading Samba with Subversion
C. Configure Options

There simply is no better book on the market for this niche topic. If you use a Windows/Linux environment you will need this book at some point. Save your time and pick this up TO-DAY!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I am an ITIL V2 Service Manager and ITIL V3 Expert with multiple practitioner certifications. I am also an ITIL assessor for an ITIL examination institute. I know Randy Steinberg and teach ITIL for some of the same customers he does. To be perfectly honest, at first I was somewhat skeptical of his idea that all IT organizations deliver essentially the same services. Having read this book, though, I understand now exactly where he is coming from. This book is an excellent starting point and guide to a very, very difficult task for organizations implementing ITIL -- defining the Service Catalog in business language, rather than technical terms. If you consider that a good Service Catalog can lay the foundation for a correct Configuration Management Database, and that the CMDB is the key to good Service Management processes and functions, this book is an invaluable tool for anyone implementing ITIL.

Fantastic!!! This book is extremely well written and easy to enjoy - I read through 30 pages or so in no time. I shared the book with my team and my manager immediately turned around and ordered copies for my coworkers - nothing like buying a product that makes you look good to your boss. My team is implementing ITIL and we had some key questions about service definitions that we had been stuck on for months. This book answered all of those questions - better yet, it told us the process we should follow, not just a canned out-of-the-box answer. The Measuring ITIL book is also good (my boss ordered just a couple copies of that for the folks who are doing the metrics for our team). I went ahead and ordered the Implementing ITIL book. If the Implementing ITIL is as good as the other two books, I'm sure we'll find a use for it.

As an ITSM consultant, I often enter into engagements where the service provider client is unable to answer the question "What services do you provide?" or offers varying answers depending on the perspective of each individual. As a result, consulting staff must investigate, discover, codify, present and validate the IT services often consuming high end resources that are better allocated towards the difficult tasks of implementing ITSM improvements and organizational change surrounding those services. As best practices mature in detail and the ITSM lifecycle expands with perceived complexity, the demand for external expertise is increasing while organizations also seek avenues to increase their internal capabilities. This book can assist those teams tasked with developing common service lists, attributes, definitions, catalogs and portfolios while making more cost effective use of external assistance.
Staying true to form, Randy Steinberg expands his existing ITIL publications with yet another pragmatic guide available to assist Service Managers and IT personnel implement fundamental best practices of IT service management without focusing on the theoretical and academic discussions around processes and functions widely available elsewhere. As in previous books, Randy pulls from his experiences to provide templates, guidance, shortcuts and tips relevant to any ITSM implementations by concentrating on the common elements amongst most service provider environments. If you are already schooled in the fundamentals of ITSM and applicable frameworks such as ITIL and seeking to move from theory to practice - then I highly recommend this series of books as a great starting point and core reference within your professional library.
As an ITIL advocate and realist, I further appreciate Randy's presentation style which promotes the adaptation and consideration of best practices as guidelines not mandates while addressing framework and lifecycle specifics to satisfy ITIL purists including an entire chapter mapping his general service principles to the ITIL V3 lifecycle structure. Like Randy's previous texts, this handbook is written for the "doers" rather than just the "thinkers".

I'am certified IPSR and IPRC, and i have some knowledge about IT governance and ITIL. I bought this book, hoping that this material could give me a broder view of ITIl and practical examples of ITIL implementations and real-life challenges. However this books its only a service catalog, with a dozens of example services and its descriptions. And thats it! If you're looking for real-life examples or simply ITIL methodology or proccess descriptions forget about it. Take another book.

This is an outstanding book for those of us trying to create service catalogs. It give you everything you need to build a solid foundation. I've already recommended this to several colleagues.