Computing Internet Books

This is a must read book if you are a developer, architect or in anyway related to technology.

As a newcomer to enterprise architecture this book educated me on possibilities for decisions to be made in designing an enterprise architect. It will also give you a language for describing existing characteristics of an existing enterprise application which may use some combination of the patterns describe in this book. The discussion of where to keep session state for a webapp was particularly helpful to me.

Even if you don't do "Enterprise Application" development, this book is a must have in your library. If you have been developing for more than a couple of years and you haven't seen 1/2 of the patterns in this book, then you are probably doing something wrong and this book could greatly help you.

Even if you do know 1/2 or more of the patterns in this book it is a great reference to the details of these patterns. Unless you are a Sophomore Software Engineering Student I'd recommend this book over the GoF book. Gof is a must have too, but if you can only have one. Get this one!

For me, this book is an invaluable reference for building business apps.

Want help choosing a framework? Want some guidance for solving common business problems? These patterns help solve these kinds of problems.

NOTE: I have tried to find other sources for these patterns, and I have only found Fowlers website, which is really only a summary and recommends purchasing the book.

This book has examples in both Java and C#. You can certainly use these patterns in .NET.

Under .NET you are not actually forced to use the Table Model. I think the purpose of this book is to help you realize this.

There are frameworks for .NET that use the Domain Model and Data Mapper patterns, but you would never know this unless you were familiar with the patterns in this book.

For me, reading this book didn't allow me to write new code, but it did allow me to understand my choice to use a particular framework/technique over another.

This book is a complete beginner's handbook for enterprise patterns.

1) The "Mapping to Relational Database Patterns" section discusses patterns that are completely intuitive. I recall logically coming to this conclusions when I started programming in Visual Basic in 99. Nothing new in this section.

2) The "Concurrency" section is criminal in nature and assumes that the application runs on high-cost server. Process-per-session? Thread-per-request? Come on!! Has the author missed out on the Reactor, Proactor and Active Object patterns (he does reference ACE but only as a reference). These patterns have been recognized as not scalable in the late 90s.

3)The distribution patterns are clearly incomplete and desire a lot of details.

If you're just starting out,as a System Architect :-), you'll find this useful. Otherwise, use MSDN or ACE for enterprise patterns.

A must for any IT security/networking engineer. Great read, great price, informative yet entertaining.

Nutshell review - This is a great read. Very entertaining and informative. Will really open your eyes and make you think about unusual information security issues and attack vectors.

Zalewski brought up a number of interesting and very innovative security situations and possibilities. The statistical derivation of content based upon CPU utilization, is something I had never even considered... but at the same time it looks like it could be more work than someone would be willing to invest. The writing style is also slightly academic. A fair amount of time is spent giving background and information about a topic when those who may see the situation will probably already understand the history. I will have to admit that this was not a page turner, but I am very happy I bought this book. It was just a little difficult to get through at times.

The Global Network is not a battle ground. It is a play ground.

This book although it covers security issues is great insight into the mentality that the security geeks can have. For them the security of platforms and networks are faulted and the hackers task is to disclose that.

Silence on the Wire is not your typical security book detailing the
latest application exploits or generalized security trends and attack
prevention. Zalewski deals in the minutia. If you were to construct
a Bell Curve of security knowledge and concepts, you would need to
chop out a large portion of this graph and simply include the upper
threshold, in which Zalewski thrives on the seemingly unknown.

Zalewski takes a bottom-up approach. He dives right into the security
of hardware design, Random Number Generation, and how this can all add
up to information leakages otherwise known as security threats. If
you have ever typed on a keyboard, then you may be interested in
knowing what signature you are generating of yourself every time you
log into that remote SSH console. Perhaps you might also be
interested in the fact that simple mathematical operations, such as 2
* 100, could result in timing attacks against your algorithm, whereas
100 * 2 may not. Scary stuff.

Zalewski continues with seemingly innocuous attacks that can occur
before your IP packets ever leave the local network. It is unnerving
to find out just how easy (and cheap) it is to reconstruct data from
those blinking lights on your network equipment, or unsanitary
Ethernet frames. Have you ever given thought to how nice it was to
have virtual network auto-configuration on your switches? Well, so do
your foes.

Once your packets touch other nodes all across the Internet, that's
when the real fun begins. If you are already familiar with the OSI
Model and the TCP/IP suite, then your reading will hit a low point for
the next thirty pages or so. However, when you emerge from this sand
trap of common knowledge, most certainly provided to assist uninformed
readers, you are met with quite worthy knowledge detailing the ability
to accurately identify remote parties, who otherwise may wish to
remain anonymous. Your choice of Operating System and Web Browser may
help somewhat, but Zalewski shows how you can still be sniffed out
even across the sea of the Internet.

Zalewski concludes the book with a brief look at the entire Internet
as an aggregate system, and how subtleties of its inner-workings can
be exploited by those who understand them. It never once crossed my
mind to utilize carefully constructed packets for distributed
computing tasks acting as Boolean operations, but one of the final
topics regarding parasitic storage does appear quite attainable.
Zalewski's final chapter in the book leaves us with the lesson that
sometimes all you need to do to discover the minutia, is to open your
eyes.


* p. 127: Figure 9-6, regarding TCP options, is incorrect.
* p. 182/183: '6,4512' should read '64,512'.
* p. 198: 'user-racking' should read 'user-tracking'.
* p. 216: 'www.rogue-severs.com' should likely read 'www.rogue-servers.com'.
* p. 233: 'recover the information he when it bounces back' should
likely read 'recover the information when it bounces back'.

Bought this book to help pass the 070-649 exam and it helped do the job... It is not geared for the exam but it covers the subjet matter on the exam... Also it is the only real 2008 Server book out right now....

Cover the topics well and goes thru the installation process...

I've been waiting for a complete book on Windows 2008, and glad to have gotten in a pre-order and purchase of this book! 1400+ pages!!! I jumped straight to the migration chapter as we're looking for tips on how to plan our migration from Windows 2003. Very complete and detailed process along with tips and hints, which was great to see someone has actually done the migrations before and could share best practices! I also found the chapter on clustering and high availability (chapter 29) to cover the new Windows 2008 clustering in detail as being very helpful! And since we have several sites, Chapter 32 on branch office was a good read! I think I'm only 120 pages thru the most pertinent chapters to me, but expect to read the thing cover to cover. GREAT book, I highly recommend it!!!

This book is a monster at 1337-pages (sorry, I don't count the 100-page index that brings this book to 1432-pages) and hard bound cover, REALLY NICE, I felt I got my money's worth! I've bought several of Rand's books in the past, this one is another winner! 37-chapters on everything from design and planning, through testing, through migrations, plus chapters on security, clustering, performance optimization, SharePoint, Hyper-V, etc. I went through the RTM product and the book, it covers everything end to end which is GREAT! Another winner, very impressive!!!

I went to the Windows 2008 launch event and got excited about migrating our company to Windows 2008, but wanted to get a third party book to help me better understand the REAL features, functions, and experiences of the product (rather than Microsoft's rendition of it). I jumped on Amazon and searched for a book, and this Windows 2008 Unleashed book was already rated with a couple 5-stars, so I bought it. I just got it last week.

At first, I was a little overwhelmed as the book is almost 2-inches thick and hard bound (definitely worth the cost for the shear volume and amount of paper it took to print this book)! I read the introduction chapter and got a lot more comfortable with Windows 2008 as the author provided a really good comparison of Windows 2008 to Windows 2003 (which I already know pretty well). The intro chapter also gave me links to different parts of the book that helped me organize the way I was going to review the text of the book (I prioritized chapters in the book based on my interests, which was outlined and highlighted very well in the first chapter).

I was most interested some of the new things I've heard about Windows 2008 such as the security stuff, Windows virtualization, terminal services, and Active Directory Federation. I flipped to each of the chapters that covered these topics, and I found the content very easy to follow. Each chapter started off with an overview of the topic (like an introduction of the concepts) and then as I got further into the chapter, it got more into the details on how to implement the technologies, and it had notes and tips throughout the chapters that made it obvious to me the authors have worked with Windows 2008 for a long time and provided great guidance!

After reading about 5 chapters, I then focused on what it would take to implement and migrate to Windows 2008 and flipped to the chapters on installation and on migration. Those chapters also were VERY well structured and helped walk me through what was involved. I was greatly relieved to read that the migration process from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008 wasn't that complicated. And while I have only been fiddling with Windows 2008 for about a week in the lab here at the company I work for (which is a pretty extensive lab with over 30 servers mirroring a portion of our production environment), I've gone from being overwhelmed to pleasantly relieved that our migration to Windows 2008 will be well planned, staged, and executed thanks to the content of this book!

I am grateful to the authors of this book! I just bought the books on Exchange 2007, SharePoint 2007, and Windows Vista written by the same authors (Rand Morimoto and Michael Noel) as I think their writing style and the value of the content is wonderful!

B

Using a computer that's connected to the Internet seems to be to be a lot like living in the old west must have been. That is rather like a law of the jungle with the Sheriff out of town a lot.
There are people out there who would like to send your computer troublesome software like viruses, spyware, adware, all kinds of malware. For some reason they seem to think that just your being there is an open invitation for them to try to compromise your system.

The author is a principle software engineer for Symantec, the company that produces the Norton security software. In this book he describes the various types of attacks you are likely to get and tells you how to protect yourself from virtually all types. He includes with the book a trial version of Norton's Internet Secutiry 2006 and tells you how to get the best out of it.

The interesting thing about computer security is that if it is working perfectly you never know that its there. You simply use your computer without interruption, without popups, without mysterious -- well, you get the picture.

I recieved the book and it was in perfect condition. The delivery was earlier than I expected.

Hands down this is one of the best textbooks I've read in a while. Written by a DeVry University professor, Steve Silva, he cuts out the fluff and goes to straight to the meat and potatoes of the subject! If you want to master web server administration, this is book to read!

Darel

i could never have mastered photoshop elements without it, very helpful and a simple read.

The book is well written,with a lot of information, however I am very disappointed as it is not a step by step tutorial, as I believed it would be. Yes, there are downloadable files/photos, but there is no step by step instruction to go with the photos throughout the chapters.

If you are not looking for a tutorially written text, and just want dry information on how everything works in Elements, then you will be happy with this nicely formatted book.

I bought this to help me learn Photoshop Elements. Since getting a digital camera a few years ago & not having to pay for film mistakes anymore, I have taken a new interest in photography. I decided to invest in a good quality editing program but I hate having to rely on onscreen help to get somewhere. This is a very thorough (I think) chapter by chapter explanation of Elements 5.0 & it answers most of my questions. I would hate to be without it, even though I don't use it daily. It is a large book with plenty of color illustration and written very simply. It's not 100 percent comprehensive but there is very little that isn't covered - well worth the price.

This book is the most complete manual on a very useful program. I have yet to encounter a question this book does not fully answer.

I like the book, but currently have a library copy for my reference. I have only one negative comment. When the author starts to describe an action or step, suddenly she will veer off on a tangent, leaving me wondering where the rest of the text is ....oh, there it is, 2-3 paragraphs later. She really wants you to know all she does about Elements. I will be purchasing my own copy shortly regardless as I do think it is probably the best on the subject

I've never been very good with computers so when I got a new computer with Vista I went looking for books that could help. I bought this one because Stanek's book was recommended over all other Vista books in Library Journal's round up of Vista books. Library Journal's May 15, 2007 says it better than I can, here's what they said:

"A thorough guide, best for intermediate to advanced users of earlier Windows versions. Clear discussions of changes in security features and of other Vista improvements such as gadgets and sidebars make this useful for upgraders; comprehensive coverage of every aspect of the OS renders it a one-stop shop for familiarizing readers with every feature, from hardware installation to Windows Movie Maker to Group Policy. Errata and book information can be found online. A good purchase for larger libraries."

When choosing between this book and other Vista books, Library Journal also says:

"Choose Stanek's Definitive Guide for its comprehensive coverage and clear prose if you can buy only one."

I agree, this is an excellent book and so much better than others I found. Vista is a great system once you learn how to use it. If you are new to Vista, this is one book that should not leave your computer's side!

Vista Definitive Guide is a 922-page Vista bible, much better than Vista Missing Manual in my opinion. I got this after having excellent success with the author's other computer books. Extremely complete and full of answers. Kudos to the author for writing such an excellent book!

I have been using windows at home now for 14 years and with each operating system upgrade there's more to learn. I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to Windows. So what if some people say "it's not definitive by any means," I find that it covers so much and even some things I won't need. I LOVE this book. It is not hard on your eyes, has plenty of diagrams and something I found especially interesting is how virus's, malware and all the nasties can enter your computer and the damage they can cause. I'm the type of woman who is not just satisfied with the "just do it this way" kind of help. I want more meat in the WHY I should do it this way. I use this book along with "Windows Vista: The Missing Manual" That books gives lot's of tips and stuff that has saved me much work and headache. These books work well together

Windows Vista: The Definitive Guide is an excellent book. Every Windows Vista User should purchase this book to learn Windows Vista. The book covers everything most users want to know and should know about Windows Vista.

This book is clear and to the point with comprehensive coverage of Windows Vista. It covers all versions of Vista and the many included programs and utilities as well as new security features. It covers Internet Explorer 7 and how to make your own audio CDs and DVD movies. There is an extensive discussion on installation and advanced issues. At a hefty 921 pages it makes a thoroughly detailed reference.

Plus this book is written for easy reader understanding and for enjoyable reading. Great book if you really wish to learn Windows Vista. For administrators, I'd also recommend Stanek's Windows Vista Administrator's Pocket Consultant.

William Stanek's pocket consultants are excellent - I've been a reader for years. In looking for a large reference for home, I saw this one - the definitive guide and chose it over Vista Inside Out and Vista Missing Manual. Stanek has a better style, and he understands the software better.

He once again is able to take technical topics and infuse clarity and depth while staying clearly focused. I have been running Vista since beta one, and this book is an excellent reference for those of us already familiar with the Windows operating systems.

In my opinion, this is an excellent book for all skill levels. Beginners will appreciate Stanek's ability to clearly and concisely explain even the most complex topics. The fact the book jumps right into the most important topics for home and office users doesn't hurt either.

Advanced users will find this book makes it easy to quickly get up to speed and to learn the new topics fast. Plus he writes in a friendly easy to understand language, so that you don't get lost in computer jargon. At the same time, he has a very organized and clear style. His details are never off topic and that's refreshing. His sense of what's important and what's not makes it possible for you to actually read the whole book and get all of the useful information out of it.

Pro users will find this book to be an excellent reference and regular reference. This isn't a book for administration though. Stanek's Vista ADministrator's Pocket Consultant is the best one for that.

This is THE MUST HAVE VISTA manual for the home and office. Thank you William Stanek for helping me get the most out of Vista!

I'm a long-time Linux user, somewhat new to Ubuntu, and I was interested to see what this book brought to the table so I looked at it. This is a GREAT book if you have never used Linux before, or have little Linux experience and zero Ubuntu experience. However, for everyone else, this book is a waste of money, unless it is just to support the project (which is a very noble cause). The first part of the book tells you about the history of Ubuntu, which is interesting but not why I would buy this book. Then it goes over the install process, which to the credit of the distribution is so simple that if you've ever successfully installed Linux before, you don't need. Once you get to chapters 7 - 11 it talks about related projects in quick summary form, as well as the online forums and projects. Appendix B - E talks about licensing and other documents, as well as more forum information. So in the end, you're left with chapters 3 - 6 of information that you'd ever want to refer to more than once, plus Appendix A which gives you 10 pages on the command line, for a total of 134 (out of 497) pages. The rest is either available in a more ideal format on the internet or something you'd only want to read once. I think a better idea would have been to release two books: #1 "The Ubuntu Way" detailing the history, etc., and #2 a usage guide tailored to this distro.

I think a better way to learn Linux with Ubuntu for those who want a physical book would be to read the Ubuntu wiki and pick up the latest edition of Linux in a Nutshell. Or Ubuntu for Non-Geeks.

This book combined with the LINUX bible are a must have for anyone just beginning to learn LINUX. They will walk you through the whole transition from VISTA (viruses, intruders, spyware, Trojans, and adware) or any other MS products.

Very easy reading, although I thought the history was a bit too long. Everything explained not just in Linux/Ubuntu but also the comparison phrasing from windows.

Good first book for new to computer and Linux types. Lots of history, purpose, flavors and what they do. Touches on most subjects well enough to get you started and help you focus on what you will need help on next. As a long term computer/system user I've ordered more specific books already. Looking online will get you most of what's here, but this concentrates it.
Also you will find lots of info online and most of it is excellent.
Good book to recommend to decision making users/managers to help them decide Windows isn't the only choice. Has a ver 7.04 CD.

The book is very basic. If you like hardcopies yet don't wish to print pages from Ubuntu's site then perhaps you'll be satisfied. The chapters on Ubuntu's founding are well-written and honoring to their contribution to the computing world. But, as with setup details and troubleshooting help, all can be found on the site.

I bought this, flipped through it a couple of times, then tossed it aside. A few years later, I decided to look through it again. This time, after about 15 pages in, I started to get inspired. I was concurrently redesigning my website, and it spoke to that process and, and also of collaboration. This book may reinvigorate your motivation and inspiration for new media design.

Self appointed maestro trys to teach common sense! If you don't inherently know this then you probably have no business being in this business!

The book was in really good condition, although I did not recieve my book on time. Thanks.

I have read the Process and Inspiration sections thus far and Curtis gives helpful advice in how to succeed in media design.

I'm just starting to learn about design, reading online and checking some books at the library of my college. This book is a great help because it does tell you the key fact that all ideas are there, borrowing is ok to transform something into a new well crafted thing,and you can find inspiration in many, many ways. Many useful information, tips, quotes, in general, I'm gonna buy this book for my collection.

I found this book while browsing the programming section of Borders (the programming section of my local Borders is amazing!), and I've found it to be a real gem.

The book covers so much more than just Apache security. It covers installation and configuration, and explains a little of how Apache works along the way. There are also chapters or sections on:

- Understanding and securing PHP
- An explanation of SSL
- DOS attacks
- Traffic shaping in Apache
- Logging is covered extensively
- There's a chapter on web security in general, where all the common attacks are explained
- Using Apache as a proxy or a reverse proxy

I especially enjoyed the Web Security Assessment chapter where the author explained how to systematically analyze and probe web applications/servers, with many real world examples.

There is a large section discussing mod_security, which is an amazing Apache module. Mod_security is an intrusion detection and prevention engine for web applications (a web application firewall). The book is written by the author of mod_security (Ivan Ristic), so he really knows what he's talking about in this area. Also covered is mod_dosevasive, which, obviously helps prevent against denial of service attacks.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any Apache administrator, user, or web programmer. Its one of my favorite books on my bookshelf.

Thanks a lot, we are very happy to have this book in our library!

This book is worth every single dollar. The examples are very clear and also provide invaluable information about security.

A must have for everybody using Apacge.

I recently received copies of Apache Security (AS) by Ivan Ristic and Preventing Web Attacks with Apache (PWAWA) by Ryan Barnett. I read AS first, then PWAWA. Both are excellent books, but I expect potential readers want to know which is best for them. The following is a radical simplification, and I could honestly recommend readers buy either (or both) books. If you are more concerned with a methodical, comprehensive approach to securing Apache, choose AS. If you want more information on offensive aspects of Web security, choose PWAWA.

Before I go further, I must mention that Ivan Ristic cites me and my books twice, on pages 2 and 229. While humbling, I tried not to let this fact influence my review.

AS is an extremely well-thought-out book. My favorite aspect of AS is the decision to start with a blank httpd.conf file, rather than accepting the file packaged with Apache and making edits as needed. By building up httpd.conf from scratch, the author shows exactly what components are needed in a very clear manner. This was not the approach used by PWAWA. I would like to see other technical books adopt this teaching method.

AS includes better coverage of several topics which I believe are core to securing Apache. I liked AS' discussion of chroot environments and jails, although the author should distinguish between chroot on Linux or BSD and jail on BSD alone. AS features a whole chapter on proper PHP deployment (Ch 3), and a whole chapter on SSL/TLS (Ch 4). AS devotes another chapter to explaining how to host multiple Web sites on one host (Ch 6), which is critical to many Apache environments. AS' chapter on Web infrastructure (CH 9) also covers topics not found in PWAWA.

AS is also less explicitly Linux-centric than PWAWA. As a primary FreeBSD user, I found AS' approach more applicable to my environment. PWAWA seemed to assume everyone was running Red Hat Linux. It's fine to use a single OS for all examples, but I had to personally identify tools and techniques that would probably only work on Red Hat.

I had very little trouble with any of the text in AS. My main concerns involve Ch 1, where the author spends time on certain security concepts. I would consider the following with regards to threat modeling on p. 5: (asset) what might be compromised; (motivation) why compromise; (vulnerabilities) where compromised; (attack) how compromised; (threat) who compromised you; (risk) threat X vulnerability X asset value. On pp 9-10 the author should also have used the risk equation just mentioned.

Overall, I really liked AS. The book really is about Apache security, so if you are more interested in attacking Apache you might prefer PWAWA. If you want to learn about Web application hacking in general, your best bets are probably Hacking Exposed: Web Applications, 2nd Ed, and Professional Pen Testing for Web Applications. I will read and review those two books shortly.

Excellent book. The chapters on PHP and logging are especially useful.