Computing Internet Books

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum starts off pretty well. It begins with some very good examples of poor design that lead to a bad user experience, as well as just how downright dysfunctional the software development process can be. There is also the beginnings of a thesis on how to solve these problems. From there however, the quality of The Inmates takes a steep nosedive. The deeper into The Inmates you go, the lower the signal-to-noise ratio becomes. Cooper's message gets buried progressively deeper under a heap of sand-kicking diatribes about software engineers, armchair quarterbacking of the designs of others, and thinly veiled plugs for Cooper's particular brand of interaction design consulting.

There are some good ideas in The Inmates, though nothing truly groundbreaking at this point in time. Cooper champions things such as goal oriented design, personae, and primacy of user friendliness. All of which are good things, but none of which are exactly new concepts in 2008. However, the actual useful information comprises maybe 75 pages of the 250ish pages in the book, and is reduced to little more than nuggets of useful information scattered throughout a sea of whining and self aggrandizement.

Cooper's armchair quarterbacking of certain technologies as 'dancing bearware' is particularly annoying. Cooper continually brings up example after example of software and technology that is breaking new ground, acknowledges the fact that the technology even exists as an amazing achievement, and then turns around and lambasts it for not magically coming equipped with the precise amount of polish and feature sets that he wants. The 20/20 hindsight through which Cooper views many technologies belies the fact that Cooper is just as blinkered when it comes to the 'big picture' issues of software engineering as the managers and programmers that he continually needles.

Cooper tries to keep the tone light, and his unique brand of humor kept me reading even as the tone of the book slid gradually into that of a polemic against all things Alan Cooper doesn't like. This book can be downright dangerous if taken as holy writ. Cooper continually takes shots at programmers, and in fact spends an entire chapter reducing them to a set of stereotypes and providing an 'animal handling' guide for the backwards, egotistical, smelly bullies otherwise known as 'programmers'. Taking Cooper's stereotypes to heart is pretty much guaranteed to cause rifts between design and engineering teams, as Cooper goes to great length to explain exactly how far beneath contempt programmers are, how they are not to be trusted, etc. The Inmates espouses a philosophy of design in which non-designer stakeholders are to be marginalized or even totally cut out of the design process. The concepts of business or technical needs influencing design are constantly sidelined, as business and technical concerns are never legitimate, but rather the result of inept managers or lazy programmers. This book should be subtitled 'How to have your design, business, and engineering teams at each others' throats in 3 easy steps'.

Overall I think that the book has some useful information, but much like Cooper does with his case studies, the reader must cherry-pick it to obtain any useful information. Coopers ideas are good (if dated), but they could have been presented in a far more concise fasion, and could have done without the extra 175 pages of masturbatory ego stroking, ranting, and poorly disguised plugs for his consulting firm.

This a classic book that anyone who build computer systems should read. Some of the specific examples are dated, though many caused me to nod in acknowledgment, especially his observations about alarm clocks and TV remotes, Inmates describes goal directed design, the concept of Pesonas, ideas which, whether they make sense for your project are not, are ones that you should be aware of. This book also explains what "polite software" is and emphasizes the market advantages to good interaction design. Even if this book doesn't change the way you work, it will help you think about the relationship between interaction design and programming. Among the interesting points Cooper makes are Customer Driven isn't aways the best model (customer influenced is better), and neither is Engineering Driven; software designers should go beyond customers say they want and help them to understand what they need. There were a few things towards the end of the book that struck me as just wrong. For example Cooper says that most developers don't believe that they are the best people to test their code. Most Agile software developers would challenge that point. Agile developers would also challenge the recurring theme that the engineering team can't make the leap to understanding the customer enough to build good interaction design. He ignores the value of a specializing generalist, which is an important concept in today's projects. It's for these points that I gave this 4 rather than 5 stars. Regardless, this is a book that anyone building software systems should read, if only to understand the concepts underlying interaction design.

Alan Cooper gives the reader insight into why so many of today's technological products frustrate and confuse users. Yet he goes past this to discuss a methodology for keeping it simple and designing for the user i.e. avoiding cognitive friction. This book has changed the way I will develop products and should be a must read for product managers of application developers. Just learning Mr. Cooper's vocabulary is worth the read. The ideas such as personas, keywords, and designing for an individual push the book way above average. This is an easy read that should be done in your spare time if you want to avoid cognitive friction with your users. It has changed the way I view technology and brought a new awareness to thoughtless technology implementation which often cause failure or misuse. The only reason I gave this book a 4 out of 5 as I feel it could have been reduced a little bit more, certain points I felt like the author was rambling about personal fustrations.

The strength of this book its clear and easy-to-read writing. Cooper's examples are instructive and the theory of why design-centric business approaches are the most powerful. It's supposed to be a business-case book but I'm quite sure all programmers and even designers would find the read very worthwhile.

My only wish for the book would be that Chapter 10 onwards seemed to be the really exciting stuff, detailing the how more than the why of design-centric approaches. This part feels like a rushed summary in comparison the the attention paid to the why aspect in the rest of the book. You may want to consider Cooper's newly revised "how" book although it is mainly a designer's handbook: About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design

I'm not done with that About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design but I'm starting to worry it's going to leave me wishing it had more specific methodologies as opposed to theories. Of course, it has much more methodological attention than The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) and there's no fault in what is written, only in what is omitted.

If you're really looking for the ultimate how-to, you might want to consider attending the four-day "Cooper U". Case in point: I had the chance to ask Alan Cooper where I could learn more about how to create the design documents he writes about in the last part of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) and he really couldn't say what books would be able to instruct that (including his own) and that it would be covered in his course.

Cooper's argument in this book is simple: you have to know your users, and you have to understand what they're trying to accomplish with your software. The method that he puts forth for achieving this understanding is personas, richly-described archetypical users.

The book is easy to read and understand. He begins with a detailed description of the problem with software design as carried about by programmers who can only imagine themselves as the users of their software, resulting in software that makes really difficult things possible but doesn't bother to make easy or common things quick and easy.

After making the argument that programmers shouldn't design interfaces and making the case both for usability and interaction design, he lays out the personas concept. Cooper's guidelines for creating personas and using them are well-written and well-thought-out. However, his examples of applying them to some of his own customers are rather repetitive, and sometimes come across as somewhat whiny.

Now that it's time for my group at Microsoft to revisit our personas and determine what needs to be tweaked for our next version, I decided that I should revisit the book that first advanced the idea. It has stood up well to the test of time (something that not many computer books can do). I highly recommend it, both to usability and design professionals, as well as programmers.

I had the chance to read this book, and found it well written, comprehensive and extremely useful reference. It is amazing how all the "predictions" from the moment the book was written (1999) are now (2007) a reality. I'd really like to see the 4th Edition, not to see a change in its contents or layout, but to see upgraded information on the products.

The picture shown back then has now been cleared up, and some of the actors back then are now gone and others have appeared.

If you are not familiar with the Client/Server and Web programming jargon and/or are having trouble figuring out how all of the pieces fit together, this book is for you.

You'll need to get past some of the 'cuteness' that the authors use to make their points. However, they cover the topic soup to nuts in a way that you will understand going forward.

I picked up the first edition of the book by accident when I was trying to figure out fat client server computing and subsequently bought the other two versions to get more overview and to use as a desk reference (i.e. I had to explain the concept of ACID properties of transactions and needed a brush up)

Lastly, if your manager is non-technical, do yourself a favor and get him/her a copy of this book.

I found this book very interesting 1.5 years ago when I read it. Partially because there was a very good match between what was written in there, and what I could hear around me in the work place.

Time has passed, and I hear less and less talk about CORBA (except in negative terms), and more and more talk about Websphere (based on some technologies explained in the book also - I have to say)...

The third edition remains mostly interesting, but it is now more of a book providing background information, rather than a book providing cutting edge info and likely to help people make choices for the future.

I am impatiently waiting for the fourth edition.

Bernard

Pros:

- Easy to understand
This book explains technical concepts in simple english and gives analog to things we are familiar with. Most books out there "talks greek" and present technical concepts in a way that is more complicated than they actually are.

- Breadth
I have been in the IT line for more than ten years and I can say that the breadth covered is simply astounding eg. user interface,
web server, application server, databases, remote procedure call, message passing.

- Depth
The important parts of a topic is covered in sufficient depth to allow us to have a overview of the subject without being deeply buried and lost in the details. If further details on any topic is required, one can always look up the other books. We just need a good overview here.

- Humor
I loved the humorous cartoons that aptly describe the concepts and keeps us from falling asleep.

- Organization
The topics are well organized with similar concepts grouped under a common heading with subheadings and so on. Most books out there group multiple large concepts under one heading (with no subheadings) making it harder to read and bookmark.

Cons:
This book is outdated. We need to know where does microsoft .net framework fits in. Is COM/COM+ dead ? Who is winning - .net or CORBA ? What about new standards such as SOAP ? What does microsoft new language C# brings to the world of client/server ?

I found this book to be both a waste of money and my valuable time. I was looking for an intermediate to advance level treatment of client server systems. I was utterly disappointed. This book attempts to start from the very basic fundamentals and delve into the more advanced concepts. It miserably fails at its task. For the intermediate to advanced level readers, it fails to deliver what they were expecting. For example, 80%+ of each chapter is devoted to covering the basic terminology and the remainder tries to touch base on the various technologies. I found the coverage to lack detail and completeness. If you happen to be a begginer at the subject matter, you may be even more disappointed. Skimming through the fundemantals, I was surprised to find the basics were explained in terms of the advanceds. For instance, middleware was explained in terms of its utility in transaction integrity and load balancing. Anyone who understands transaction integrity and load balancing doesn't need an explanation of middleware. He/she would most likely be interested in specific methodologies. And, anyone who doesn't know what middleware is, most likely will not know what transaction integrity and load balancing mean. This book is full of such, let's say, logical inconsistency. ...

Dreyfus is a Heidegger scholar who is also known for his books explaining "why computers can't think." This short (it can be read in an evening), provocative book discusses some of the problems of reliance on the Internet as a source of information and an educational forum, in a way that is interestingly informed by Dreyfus's study of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. I highly recommend this book both to students of Continental philosophy (the author's use of Kierkegaard to argue against Habermas's notion of the "public sphere" as the locus of a meaningfully participatory democracy is especially provocative) and to anyone who has ever wondered whether the Internet really is making our lives better. Dreyfus explains why and how it may not be.

The Internet Book raises the following questions: Can we leave our vulnerable bodies while preserving relevance, learning, reality, and meaning? The latest book of Hubert Dreyfus will examine in complete details the various perspectives -of the Net through the eyes of a Philosopher -the attraction of life on the Internet as a way of achieving Plato's dream of overcoming space and time as well as bodily finitude (as Plato said Learning takes place independent of Time and Space in Mind). Drawing on philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hubert Dreyfus discussed and seriously criticised the Net. In his criticism, he explained -that, in spite of its attraction, the more one lives one's life through the Net the more loses a sense of what is relevant, and so faces the problem of finding the information one is seeking. Also, in spite of economic attraction of distance learning, such learning by substituting telepresence for real presence (how much presence is delivered by the telepresence?), leaves no place for risk-taking an apprenticeship which plays a crucial role in all types of skill acquisition. Furthermore, without a sense of bodily vulnerability, one looses a sense of reality of the physical world and one's sense that one can trust other people. Finally, he discussed while the anonymity of the Net makes possible experimentation, the overall effect of the NET is to undermine commitment (what Kierkegaard spelled out in The Present Age) thus to deprive life of any serious meaning.

In the above book-the author tried to give answers in greater depth to the questions, which is important in field of humanities and Philosophy -that why reach beyond ourselves and our humanity? Why seek to become posthuman? Why not accept our human limits and renounce transcendence?

In my view, the book On the Internet discussed in greater depth the important question How does the Dreyfus's Skill developmental model and his non-representational learning relate to the Internet-facilitated education!

The book is divided into four chapters:

Chapter 1. Hyperlinks -In this chapter The hype about hyper-links Professor Dreyfus discussed the hope for intelligent information retrieval and the failure of AI. He raised one good question, how the actual shape and movement of our bodies plays a crucial role in grounding meaning so that loss of embodiment leads to loss of relevance.

Chapter 2. Distance-Learning -In this chapter, How far is Distance Learning from Education? Hubert Dreyfus discussed the importance of mattering and attunement for teaching and learning skills and phenomenology of skill acquisition. Apprenticeship and the need for imitation. Without involvement and presence -he said we cannot acquire skills.

Chapter 3. Telepresence -The chapter, Disembodied Telepresence and the remoteness of the Real will let us know about -the body as source of our presence of causal embedding and attunement to mood. Hubert Dreyfus has raised a question, how loss of background coping and attunement leads to loss of sense of reality of people and things. (I see something like you, but I don't see you and I hear something like you, but I don't hear you)

Chapter 4. Nihilism -The last chapter (most important), Nihilism on the Information Highway: Anonymity vs. commitment in the Present Age discussed in details about the meaning, requires commitment and real commitment requires real risks. The anonymity and safety of virtual commitments on-line, leads to loss of meaning. In this chapter, Prof. Dreyfus translated the Soren Kierkegaardian view of The Present Age to the Net.

The book is highly recommended to educators, techno philosophers and techno enthusiasts. Thank you.

Dreyfus' understanding of distance learning is quite limited. On page 39 of this book he defines distance learning as "the correspondence-course model of anonymous information consumers." Distance learning has a lot more going for it than that, I have found that there is a lot of interactivity in online courses and a high level of communication with the professors. I took one of Dreyfus' classes at Berkeley as an undergraduate and I never got to talk to him, there was no face to face learning. If you feel that the lecture method is the only way to learn, then the internet is not for you. If you want to feel like a "disembodied presence" go take a class at Berkeley as an undergrad.

"On the internet",written by H.L Dreyfus a professor at Berkley is one of the very few books on the market approaching the "net" from a philosophical point of view rather than a technical one.
This approach itself promises for some interesting questions and some very intriguing answers or theories.

Dreyfus touches both the obvious and the not so-obvious sides of the "information superhighway". He emphasizes the fact that while the internet is basically the biggest storage of information we've invented so far, it doesnt possess artificial intelligence (yet?) and thus it is hopelessly still relying on humans to sort this information out, divide it into "important" and "unimportnat" information, and even then, it's furthermore relying on the person looking for the information who has to know what he/she's looking for and how to get it (evaluating the information for example)...
He points out the flaws as he tackles the weaknesses of the search engines which look for key words and not meaning and predicts that we're not exactly close to solving this critical problem.

On probably the most interesting -and simoultaneously most controversial- chapter of the book, learning through online courses, Dreyfus argues that without personal involvement we might acquire the factual knowledge but not the skill since we are not physically "there" to interact with a teacher and to mimic what he/she does as far as the subject of learning is concerned, since, as he claims, this is one of the basics of learning.
He adds a rather strong argument on that, when he says that the fundamental way we "understand" reality is ba having a handle on it. He then goes on to conclude that the internet takes away exactly that: our connection to reality, and reasons that learning online compared to the traditional ways of learning is limited and inadequate, it inhibits proficiency.

With a world rapidly moving on to a digital existence, to functioning through the internet, a digital concious as it may, Dreyfus warns of the dangers. Predictably, alienation and new dimensions of loneliness are central themes of those warnings. We can talk to 10s of people online from different parts of the world without having any relationship with them. The passion is not there he claims, and that is probably the one indisputable point of his book.

Keeping in mind that the internet is still a relatively new medium, any conclusions we might hurry to make might be very flawed themselves. Dreyfus points this out himself when he reminds us of Plato (who seems to be a favorite of his) who 2.500 years ago warned the Athenians of the dangers of the written word. Yet, Dreyfus believes that the inetrnet is a more clear-czt case where we can see the dangers more clearly.
I disagree. We do not know how the internet will develop yet and to what direction. In Europe only a small fraction of the population actually uses it, other than to send or receive an email. This is far below the net's capabilities and it doesn't provide us with enough data about its influence on human societies yet. Most of Dreyfus's observations come undoubtedly from the american usage of the internet (which is pioneering in that sector) but as more and more cultures get involved with the medium we are bound to see the medium take on more changes and uses.

When it comes to online learning i would have to agree with Dreyfus's opinions with one main objection: up until recently learning the traditional way, whether in universities or schools, was going unquestioned and uncriticized. But especially in the 90s voices started abounding , especially from educators, that even that form of learning contains disembodiment. The west alone is filled with people with degrees who carry data but do not carry meaning in their data either exactly what Dreyfus is "accusing" the internet and its online courses of doing.
Learning in a school might provide with the all important human contact but how much of it is meaningful contact and to who's interest is one big open question.
Schooling (universities included) distribute dogma and the process of learning in them is basically limited on absorbing the dogma proficiently. It would be a blatant lie to claim that this type of learning is "better" than the online courses. It would also be an interesting question and discussion what type of learning is then the most proficient one? Dreyfus doesn't touch that question, indeed he seems to believe with no restrictions that the learning he's involved in (in university) is "ok"..
I beg to differ.
All this, with objections and questions included, doesn't mean that "On the internet" is not reccomendable. It's in fact filled with interesting points and at worst it's food for thought. As i said above , alone the fact that it's a philosophical approach on the issue makes it intriguing enough.

But we shouldn't be hasty. In 10-20 years time this book might seem terribly outdated and flawed. In fact, some might claim (and they might be right) that it already is...

This is a very little book dealing with a very big subject: does the internet add or detract from meaning in our lives? Such a topic can be covered only in a cursory way within 107 pages, but the major issues are represented in this book, and provide valuable food for thought.

Some of the questions asked are: can the internet deliver us from our bodily selves? Can the internet be used to disseminate information more efficiently and more universally? Can the internet democratize education and produce experts? What is the effect of the internet on the real? And, lastly, what are the implications of meaning in our lives concerning the internet?

These are all good questions, and each one could fill a volume on its own. Nonetheless, this book is a survey on the topics, and each topic is dealt with in about 20-30 pages.

On the issue of disembodiment and the internet, Dreyfus goes out on a limb himself while accusing others of doing the same. Why rely on the vision of the 'Extropians' (whose website is still active as of this typing) for guidance about how people are using and conceiving the internet? The vision of the web as a disembodied non-physical realm where humans will no longer have to deal with intestinal gas is a vision shared by very, very few. Dreyfus gives this concept far too much validity, and the first section of this book creates a sort of 'phantom threat' of people wanting to release themselves from their bodies (he calls it 'Cyberia'), and warnings about the consequences of wanting to do so.

The interesting part of the first section is the discussion of the failure of AI and the failing hope that cyberbeings will one day replace human beings. Those who are freaked out by the implications of 'The Matrix' will find comfort here.

Dreyfus' best arguments concern the internet and distance learning. Anyone working in education can tell you about the dismal failure of trying to replace human teachers with computers. That's not to say a certain amount of knowledge cannot be obtained from cyber-learning, but that knowledge has its limits. Expert knowledge is even difficult if not impossible from reading books (which has a certain amount of disembodiment in its own, but different, way). Face-to-face or body-to-body interaction is important, and will likely always be important, in mastering a subject or skill. That's why those who can afford it still hire tutors.

Similar arguments are put forth concerning the internet becoming a 'virtual world' in which people can potentially get sucked into and lost. It's true that this can happen, but the internet is not necessarily to blame. People can get sucked into drugs, television, reading, fantasizing, etc., and lose themselves in much the same way they can on the internet. Addictions take many forms, and the internet is but one. Still, a word of caution is justified here: the danger in the confusion of 'telepresence' - or, just because you see someone on your screen means that you're having a 'human experience' - with actual human contact is real and needs to be noted. It is not as great a danger as Dreyfus presents, however. To some it may be, but an edpidemic of Cyberians seems unlikely at this point. Also, Dreyfus points out that using the internet does not involve risk on the human level. This is becoming less and less true. It's not too hard to find out who is behind a pseudonym these days, and identity theft and monetary threat loom more and more. Not to mention that everything you type and look up on the internet is stored somewhere, and can be retrieved for purposes of marketing or otherwise. There are risks, on a fundamental human level, with internet use.

Concerning meaning and the internet, Dreyfus' claims that the internet leads to nihilism are not wholly convincing. They're based on the Kierkegaardian notion of the aesthetic and ethical life. Where Dreyfus sees problems, he defers to Kierkegaard.

Overall, the book presents a negative view on the present and future of the internet. Today it seems almost paranoid in places.The .COM burst gave us all a dose of reality, and there will likely be others to come as far as the internet is concerned. We're not to Dreyfus' distopia yet. Time may change that, or it may not. Likely more threateninig technologies will have to surface first.

This is a good place to start for exploring the philosophical implications of the internet. You won't want to stop here if this book catches your interest.

The Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analyzing With Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a good book if you want to get quick up to speed in PPS2007. It explains all you need to know in a easy way (ne deep technical language used). There are also some very useful tips and tricks notes. I recommend it to start with PPS MA. This book contains no content for more advanced instructions on dashboard or component design.

I have been involved in architecting and designing Microsoft based business intelligence solutions for the past 8 years. I was very excited when PerformancePoint was launched because it filled a very real need in the Microsoft BI platform. It is always a challenge to find training material when a new product is launched so Adrian and Nick's books have been released at just the right time.
I enjoyed both books(The Rational Guide To Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides),The Rational Guide To Planning with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides)) for the following reasons:
They are clear and simple to understand
They highlight the most important techinical and functional considerations without being too high level
They are practical and not theoretical even though the first few chapters set the scene
You don't need to be a subject matter expert to understand them
They are short so you can read them very quickly

They are great books that will allow you to get up to speed very quickly on PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics as well as Planning.

Highly recommended! Barclay and Downs have written a fine and very accessible book, which fulfills the Rational Guide promise - not of being technical bibles, but of being straightforward learning guides - in this case, to a user-friendly yet sophisticated business intelligence / performance management front-end development platform. Although the book does not intend to teach any BI back-end development, it provides just enough context so that readers without those skills will move forward without difficulty. On that note, the book also does a reasonable job of mapping PPS's not-completely-consistent terminology with that of its ideal back-end, SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.

Part I -- Introduction: The authors begin by convincingly introducing Performance Management as a strategic business challenge and an emerging discipline. They describe how PerformancePoint Server (PPS) 2007 delivers on that challenge and then correctly emphasize that multi-dimensional (business intelligence) underlying data architecture is an optimum foundation upon which to fully leverage PPS and build a Performance Dashboard that satisfies users.

Part II -- Elements: Separate chapters are dedicated respectively to Data Sources, Indicators (visual icons), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Scorecards, Reports, and Dashboards. Each chapter effectively combines a series of clear, succinct explanations of concepts and best practices followed by thoughtful step-by-step practice. Chapter 5 on Data Sources is an illuminating start, introducing how easily data from multiple sources can be integrated, with subsequent chapters reinforce it. Chapter 7 on KPI's is strong, with careful attention to theory and configuration of KPI target metrics, leaf, non-leaf and objective-KPIs, and thresholds. It also offers a simple workaround to a known glitch with multiple targets per KPI. Chapter 8 on Scorecards demonstrates the ease of Scorecard creation from solid KPI's and illustrates the payoff from good KPI naming. Chapter 9 on Reports adequately introduces, among other items, Analytic Charts and Grids (think next-gen pivot tables and pivot charts), Trend Analysis Charts (handy data mining time-series analyses), and what looks like a revolution in performance process-visualization, Visio Strategy Maps. Although I would have enjoyed an intro to Excel Services in Office SharePoint Server 2007 as an alternative BI front-end, it is, admittedly, a separate product. For help with ProClarity, which is included in PPS licensing, you need to buy a ProClarity book. Chapter 10 on Dashboard elements themselves is also effective, and the following sections -- on pages, zones, filters, display condition links, filter links, time intelligence and simply time-period specification (STPS) language -- are notably effective because, as elsewhere, the authors inform the reader just enough, then moving adeptly through a step-by-step practice sections that, as elsewhere, drive home the knowledge. Although the book provides adequate references to where multidimensional expressions (MDX) will afford more sophisticated features (eg. custom KPI data-mapping, custom reports and grids, filter link formulae), it, of course, does not presume to try to build readers' MDX skills.

Part III - Implementation and Mgmt: Chapters 11 and 12, respectively on Deploying to SharePoint and Security, briefly cover just the basics. Importantly, as a welcome enhancement from "Business Scorecard Manager" (predecessor product), PPS Dashboards are deployed to SharePoint (or other portals) as already integrated solutions needing little additional configuration.

Bonus -- The bonus materials, available via web to registered readers, are all worth downloading. Bonus Chapter Two - Designing an Effective Performance Management Solution, should be required reading for most or all project stakeholders. Bonus Chapter Three - (KPI) Scoring, addresses, importantly, how child KPI's rollup to parent KPI's, especially in the context of the preferred threshold banding method, "Band by normalized value of Actual/Target".

Prepare your PC -- Perhaps the best way to deploy the entire platform to readers' PC's for learning and even light-development purposes is -- in light of the sheer amount of required software -- to download the following items from Microsoft.com: (1) Virtual PC 2007; and (2) BI-VPC 5.1, which includes PPS, MOSS, SQL Server 2005 Dev and much more. Lastly and importantly, I discourage readers' from attempting to use BI-VPC on a PC with under 2GB RAM. 2GB is slow but works. 4GB works well.

Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes have authored their second book in the Rational Guide series entitled The Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. Their first book was The Rational Guide to Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005, which I've also read and found to be very useful.

The book begins with a description of what Performance Management is and the role it plays in business organizations. They also introduce PerformancePoint Monitoring's component architecture with easy-to-follow illustrations, discuss key terminology and cover the BI stack of Microsoft products that support and interact with PerformancePoint Server 2007. All of this is done in the first 45 pages.

The authors use the remaining 200 pages to walk you through installation and configuration (both stand-alone and distributed installs) as well as the primary elements: data sources, KPIs, indicators, scorecards, reports, and dashboards. Following that is a section on implementing and managing dashboards, and a final chapter which addresses security settings and management.

What I like best about this book is that Nick and Adrian respect the reader's time. There is no excess verbiage. Each word carries its own bags and pays its own way. Chapters average about 30 pages each and are filled with illustrations, tips, and step-by-step procedures to do everything from setting Threshold Boundaries on KPIs to writing MDX code for a Time Intelligence filter.

As one of the Microsoft technical writers who worked on PerformancePoint Monitoring since its inception, I'm happy to say that I've found Barclay and Downes book to be comprehensive without being overwhelming, with clear directions and a firm grasp of the products' capabilities.

When I first started trying to work with Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) I found a terrific little book (Rational Guide) by Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes which saved me a ton of time.

Happily the PerformancePoint Monitoring product is intrinsically better than BSM and hence a little easier to understand on its own terms, but none the less this new Rational Guide is a very valuable resource for anybody tasked with working with this product.

I don't know if I should credit the authors or their editor at Rational Press, but their books seem to always hit sweet spot of providing all of the important information you need without being burdened with a bunch of filler that obscures the gems (which I think is the case with many technical books).

Bottom line: If you need to work with this product get this book.

This is an excellent book if you are heavily into the search process. It begins with a basic understanding of the internet, the web and how search engines work. It then proceeds to explain what the 'invisible' or 'deep' web is, how to recognize it and how to deal with the search process of it. It includes a huge section of reference sources on the web.

Actually bought the book for my boyfriend who is currently working on my business website - he found the book very interesting and helpful.

I retired five years ago after thirty years in a very large public library system, and recently found it necessary to return to the trenches for awhile, in a rather smaller system. In that half-decade, of course, the Internet changed drastically and, even though I'm constantly online and intimately familiar with the major search engines (and many of the minor ones), there was a large number of new reference information sources with which I was not at all familiar. So I went looking for professional tools to remedy my ignorance. This is the first book I've seen in the publisher's "CyberAge" series, and medthodologically, it's quite good. As others have noted, the static nature of print-on-paper means rapidly outdated material, but Sherman and Price show you how to attack the problem, so, even though I came across several (unfortunately) extinct databases, I was able to locate several new ones, too. This is a terrific instructional work for reference librarians, and the accompanying web site is near the top of my bookmarks at work.

The author is the unsurpassed guru of InterNet searching, and is explicitly relied upon by other authors engaging in the same work. His website is the mother lode of additional information, which is very helpful. If you have one book on your shelf regarding InterNet resources, this should be it. That said, Mr. Sherman relies heavily upon explanations of the breadth and depth of various resources; these explanations are designed to pique the reader's interest in further self-directed exploration, but may be more than the average searcher might need.

"The Invisible Web" is a thorough, thoughtful guide to finding information lying just outside the reach of search engines. It can be divided into two parts.

The first part describes the strengths and weaknesses of search engines as tools for finding information on the World Wide Web and provides a good overview of the technical and business limitations that lead to the weaknesses. At the same time, the authors also provide a high-level explanation of how search engines operate and a comprehensive explanation of what types of resources are left out of search engine indexes. Although this section is a bit repetitive, it also stands as the best explanation I have encountered on the subject of Web resource accessibility (and inaccessibility) through the popular tools that searchers have at their disposal.

The second part provides a list of Invisible Web resources (resources that can not be indexed by search engines), organized by subject, with annotations. I personally did not find this list comprehensive, but it is a good place to start for those who have previously relied solely on search engines and directories for Web searching.

If you want to understand what resources are just beyond the grasp of search engines, and get a hand on them yourself, "The Invisible Web" is a great book to get you started.

Note: some of the URL's sited in the second part of the book are now gone. This is not a criticism of the book, but a reflection of the ever-changing nature of the Web.

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!

Overall this is a good book, provided that you take it for what it is - an opinion piece. There are plenty of facts included in this book (many of which are out-of-date). However, the volume of facts does not support the volume of conclusions drawn by the author. For example:

Early on the author states that a failure to create a national database, instead of several independent ones as we have now, had lead to security issues and that the single national database would be better. He does not provide supporting material on WHY it would be better. There are other examples in the book that you can find for yourself.

Should you buy it? Maybe consider borrowing it, checking it out from the library, or getting a used one on eBay (mine will be there soon ;-)

Good book, especially for someone living on the other side of the world... From European point of view, such privacy violations are something unbelievable. Garfinkel's book simply shows us the hazards of modern technology, and convinces us that our European privacy protecting laws are a good thing, despite sometimes being used to cover bribery or theft.
Sometimes `Database Nation' seemed so naïve, but to understand it, we must notice it was written few months before attack on WTC. Now we can see how governments are trying to know everything about everybody and the only reason for that is protecting us from terrorism. Nice idea, but Garfinkel has already predicted it - he wrote that a big terrorist attack would happen, even if we maximize security and privacy violations cannot stop really bad people.
As I wrote before - I have never been in the States, so sometimes I was reading this book as some kind of `weird guide to the USA'. Some of described pitfalls can be seen in Europe as well, but usually we do not expect our medical records to be seen by anybody... maybe because in most European countries medical insurance is run mainly by the government. And here is the point, where this book lacks some kind of perspective. What do you think is better: having your medical record sold, or die because funds of some emergency stations are so low, that only one ambulance in fifty-thousand-people-city is on duty? Is it better to protect privacy, or to highlight crooks? The highly illegal under Polish law so-called `Jachnicki list' was a list of people who cheated and deceived a lot of honest citizens. Giving detailed information including name, adress, birthdate and PESEL (unique number every Pole is assigned at birth) about those people, the creators have broken Personal Data Protection Act, and were forced by government officials to stop publishing that list. This is the other side of fighting for permanent privacy - and Garfinkel doesn't write anything about it...

As we embark on the 21st century, advances in technology endanger our privacy in ways never before imagined. Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century, by Simson Garfinkel is the compelling account of how invasive technologies will affect our lives in the coming years. It's a timely, far-reaching, entertaining, and thought-provoking look at the serious threats to privacy facing us today.

Garfinkel's book does cover a lot of familiar ground, making the issue of privacy more personal to the average person. For example, he describes how cell phone networks can be used to track preferences and physical movement. He also goes into significant detail about advanced identification technologies, including retina scans and DNA analysis, that can be used to identify and track individuals, but those technologies only serve as a lead-in to the issue Garfinkel seems to regard as the most serious: medical privacy.

Chapter 6 provides strong details of the Medical Information Bureau. The MIB collects medical information entered on insurance forms and into personal records and sells that information to companies that need to set insurance premiums for applicants. What gives the MIB the right to collect that information? Garfinkel reveals that patients give them that permission when they consent to receive treatment.

At the end of Database Nation, Garfinkel calls on our nation's leaders and government to establish an executive agency charged with enforcing existing privacy laws and acting as an ombudsman for individual privacy. The new medical privacy standards the White House offered in early 2000 go part of the way to solving some of the problems Garfinkel describes, but in all I believe his solution is far to weak to result in meaningful privacy reform, nor will it be able to keep up with the ever changing technology.

Database Nation continues the growing tradition of books that cast technology in its social context. And as a doctoral student in leadership and technology, I find it heartening to read a book that so thoroughly examines technology's role in society.

This is an older book, but one that I specifically requested after reading books like Myth of Homeland Security by Marcus Ranum and Beyond Fear by Bruce Schneier. While those books related directly to homeland or national security in the wake of the 9/11 attack this book predates the attack but describes an Orwellian society where Big Brother monitors everything and privacy is a facade.

When I was in high school I read George Orwell's 1984. It is a work of fiction, but in many ways present society and technology have surpassed Orwell's vision. Simson Garfinkel paints a chilling picture of the complete lack of privacy today because we have the technology to store and retrieve almost every transaction and occurrence that goes on in our lives.

When you make a cell phone call records are kept of the area you called from and the number you called. When you make a purchase with a credit card or ATM/Debit card you create a record of where you were at a specific time and date as well as what you purchased. Medical records tell a lot about a person and are not as protected as people believe. A recent Supreme Court decision essentially states that an ISP can legally intercept and view your email without violating wiretap laws. Common, everyday activities capture and store minute details about your life.

This book offers few solutions, but does an excellent job of describing the problem in a compelling way. Everyone should read this book to learn what a facade your privacy really is.

(...)

I have been reading books about privacy, notably from Australia where they first got worried about this, and am an admirer of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) based in Washington, D.C. so I can say with confidence that this book is not completely original, but I can also say that it is quite useful. The single best and most original book in this area that I am aware of with my own limitations, is Jeffrey Rothfeder's 1992 classic, Privacy for Sale: How Computerization Has Made Everyone's Private Life an Open Secret.

The author captured my immediate interest when he posited early on that it is capitalism, not totalitarianism, that is the really grave threat to privacy, and then goes on throughout the book to demonstrate how capitalist innovation--and capitalist retribution--can find so many more profitable uses for stolen or insufficiently protected personal information including information about one's precise movements, Internet access, payments, and so on.

I credit the author with providing us with a really SUPERB discussion of an expanded definition of privacy and why it matters for the future, to include how a lack of privacy stifles free speech and individual voting or engagement.

The book is of course timely with the recent revelation of widespread NSA access to telephone records and widespread domestic telephone interceptions without warrants. I am quite certain NSA has full access to all travel and credit card records, and relatively certain that NSA is also obtaining full access to all banking transactions both within and passing through the USA. Eventually, as the dollar collapses and foreigners realize their financial transactions are not private, I suspect that the NSA intrusions will lead directly to a substantial reduction in what people are willing to transfer via US channels, and in this way deprive the US of interest and assets.

The author merits credit for anticipating in 1999 that terrorism would one day be used to justify extensive intrusions against privacy.

Most interestingly, the author reveals, for the first time to my knowledge, that NSA is in the phone card business. All those phone cards that terrorists and criminals have been using evidently have tracking information, and the testimony in the McVeigh case that the author illuminates makes it certain that this source and method will dry up for NSA with those who really matter: literate terrorists and criminals who, like Bin Laden, understand the value of open sources of information and make it their business to follow the literature.

Although the author's information with respect to credit card errors is somewhat dated, it merits comment that in 1991 there were errors in fully 43% of the files of the three main credit bureaus and--this I did NOT know--even if one corrects errors with those three credit bureaus, the corrections do NOT pass down to the 187 independent industry or localized credit bureaus that have purchased the incorrrect data prior to correction. More recently the industry claims a 1% material error factor, but in my own experience, the credit bureaus are quick to post liens or claims, and not at all interested in posting lien cancellations or settlements.

The author spends quite a bit of time, very usefully, in focusing on the fact that identity theft occurs due to lax banking and postal procedures (I for one am very upset over the countless offers of credit I receive in the undefended mail, offers that can be "hijacked" by anyone cruising for such mail before I collect it), and then denouncing the fact that victims of identify theft do not have "standing" in the courts--it is treated as a banking issue.

The book concludes with several scares and big ideas. Car have computers that can communicate--the day is coming when cars will report their owners for speeding, and a husband driving a wife bleeding to death from a farm accident will not be able to override the computerized speed limit. The author concludes that technology is eliminating the expectation of privacy, but I am more concerned by his documentation that we are becoming slaves to computers programmed by morons in bureaucracies.

The author suggests that a major challenge is how to create self-healing systems and I am curious as to why he did not know of Eric Hughes anonymous banking encryption protocols, in which only the bank and the client can see their banking data, which is otherwise constantly encrypted.

The federal government is clearly avoiding accountability, not only with respect to data privacy, but with respect to being accountable for who knew what when. The White House and the Senate clearly knew in 1974-1979 that Peak Oil was upon us (see my review of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy and also of Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil), and deliberate decisions were made to conceal the facts from the public in order to keep the bribes coming and the easy elections going. We wasted 30 years because of decisions that can now be judged to be treasonous and retrospectively impeachable.

The book has acceptable coverage of biometics, RFID, public video, and commercial space imagery. In the latter, the book has a mistake SPOT Image likes to take credit for many things, and they evidently claim credit for creating a C-130 portable ground receiving station. This is not true. Colonel "Snake" Clark in the office of the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, conceptualized and oversaw the development of that capability which made a major difference to air operations in Bosnia among other places, as it made possible near real time seasonally accurate wide area imagery feeds directly into the Air Force mission rehearsal systems.

To end on a positive note, I point to page 108 of the book, where the author discusses inexpensive discreet video surveillance systems that can be used to keep an eye on kids, cats, baby sitters, realtors showing one's home, and so on. Technology does have its uses for the individual, and I will end by saying that I found this book to be a very professional and useful overview of the implications of both digital technology, and the personal information that technology can capture, store, manipulate, share, and exploit.

This book gets very indepth about DNS. It's dry and very technical making it a hard and boring read. I don't recommend this book for the newbie. You really should have some general knowledge about the subject before buying this book.

The explanations throughout the book are difficult to follow and can be confusing. It could of been better written with a simplified approach.

After reading this book I now realize how dull DNS really is.

I was already fimilar with DNS from the first issues of this book. But this new issue does cover Microsoft DNS which I believe is excellent.

More ISP and System Admins nowadays are reliaing on MS DNS because it comes free with Microsoft Servers, high performance, it has a text based like Unix DNS, it is easy to maintain and the big reason is that it's easy to pass on the DNS responsibilities to any lower cost IT staff.

I just recently bought this book because of the fine reviews people gave.

The reason i bought this book is to get a clearer understanding of DNS related to Server 2003. I don't want to be a paper MCSE so i look voor as
much study material on the subject where i can get my hands on.
To cut corners if you are studying for the 70-291 please buy this book read it and come back here and tell how much it helped you. For me it was
a waste of money. The info can be obtained by smart Google searches.

That was my oppinion now about the book itself.

It starts very good i have to say with the explaination of DNS in an overview. The book is ok until you are getting at chapter 5 of the 16th chapters.

Chapter 5 is about MX records Exhange etc. The chapter is much to brief in my oppinion arround 9 pages or 4 A4 pages.

Chapter 7 is better but after that downhill. I skipped chapters.

Chapter 15 and 16 are again uphill.

To recap my experiences, the Book starts very promising in the first 4 chapters, they walk you through the installation of some DNS servers, and
the strange thing is they leave that path. The stuf gets boring to read over the chapters that follow and it turns out in a dry textbook.

TO end there is an old saying in Holland perhaps english speakers know it also: 'In the land of the blind one eye is King'. Consultants
are being payed to Design and set up in this case DNS solutions, its like shooting in your own foot to write well written books on those subjects.
And thats the problem, i found the official Microsoft 70-291 and the DNS discussed there of a better quality, a big Shame on you guys!!
Matt Larson, Cricket Liu and Robbie Allen.

I got this book coming from a BIND background and wanting to move to Windows DNS (I do have a valid reason). The first few chapters cover DNS background similar to the BIND book. After that it moves on into how to do things in the Windows world. It uses examples that are straight from the BIND book but done in Windows 2003. There are lots of screen shots and clear explanation. One of the really good things, for those coming from a *nix background, are the chapters on running from a command line and using PERL scripts to manage DNS. Overall it is a great book for anyone running DNS on Windows.

Well written book, it needs to be updated for newer operating systems that are now being used. Good examples and illustrations, the book will be a good review or refresher for those that haven't been around DNS in a while.