Computing Internet Books

Delivering Push delivers. This guide presents information for both users and developers, though I found the information for developers most useful. Unlike most of the media treatments that pushed push as the next big thing, this book stops to consider what push technologies might actually be good for.

Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and Wordpress was very helpful. I found the sections very helpful and easy to understand.

This is a great introduction, at least to Drupal version 4.

Note that the administration menus are significantly different for the current Drupal 5 release. I wonder if a revision is in the works?

Carefully designed and clearly written, this book is an effective introduction to PHP for anyone who has at least a little experience with web design. It is built around simple step-by-step examples which illustrate the principles being explained. These are clearly designed to minimize the trauma of learning a programming language for the code-phobic. The reader can follow along on the keyboard and build confidence by experimenting with variations.

For programmers, who already understand most of PHP's basic concepts, this approach can be frustrating. The book spends pages demonstrating things that could be explained in a paragraph or two.

You can learn PHP from this book whatever your background, but if you have already mastered another programming language, you'll be better off with a book that teaches PHP from that point of view.

I bought this book hoping to get up to speed quickly on the very exciting Drupal platform. Unfortunately, this book was targeted at Drupal 4.7 Users. I started using 5.5 (as of today they have a version 6 release candidate), and quickly discovered that half the information in the book did not match up. There has been a major reorganization of the administrative pages, leaving the information given you more likely to confuse than inform.

My other major objection is that the information is cursory, and does not really provide you with the skills needed to build a real site. If they had done this book well, you would have been walked through building a basic real site, so you could understand everything in context. There is nothing like that here. It is basically piecemeal information that is available online, though a bit more thorough with some exercises scattered throughout to demonstrate concepts.

Unless you intend to use Version 4 of Drupal for some reason, save yourself some money and frustration and wait for an updated version.

This is basically an outline for beginners ONLY. If you expect to be able to move on past simple installation and configuration, save your money! The software Drupal, phpBB and wordpress are all excellent programs. This book is an introduction to each and has nothing to do with building online communities. Way to simple. SORRY!!!

The internet has changed a lot since this was written but it is still a good book on the basic concepts of Online Communities. I'm not sure if there is a better resource out there yet. I would hope the author would write another version to keep it up-to-date.

Hi to everybody, I've recently read this book (in the italian version) for an university exam and I've found it very interesting. It speaks about virtual communities from the poin of view of the designer of this kind on web sites You can read about the two most importat features of VC: socialbility and usability. I've always read about these two elements in an indipendent way. Preece's Book tries to take sociability and usability in a single perspective. And it gives some useful advices to the question of community design.

Another reviewer has written `online communities for dummies'. This
is essentially correct. A student from medium-high school would
have nor problem to follow this book. This is, however, not the
disapointing part. O.K., I still can accept that Jenny Preece explain
and reexplains even to most simplest notions again and again.
But what is unacceptable is, that everything written in this book is
just descriptive. Nowhere in the whole book there is a new idea,
a new insight or anything else that would make it worth reading.

This book appears to be written for those who are ignorant about online communities (and I can't imagine why such a person would pick up this book). I found no insights in this book that would not be obvious to an experienced user/member of online communities. I was recently given a new task at work to manage an online community of practice (for project managers) at my global company, and I was hoping that this book would offer some new insights and ideas. It was a complete disappointment. I found much better information in an article from the Harvard Business Review and from the IBM website.

I thought this book was GREAT! Sure, it's dated, but every book about the Internet dates quickly. That's because the Internet is growing and changing faster than the book publishing business can publish a book.

The author takes us through many aspects of community building and group dynamics point-by-point. I had to take notes, I found it so useful. Ideas are taken from sociology and applied to the Internet. Dry in parts, yes, but very useful as far as clarifying one's ideas about online communities.

As the manager of a small women's community online, I found this book very useful. Much more practical than Amy Jo Kim's similar book, which mainly focuses on the monster-sized for-profit communities.

The ideas in this book can be applied to any size online community. It's clear thinking will help you understand participant/leader roles in order to delegate responsibility. There are also wonderful hints for keeping a community thriving and successful.

This book can help you to get insight into the fundamentals of SAP Solution Manager and also if you read every line very carefully it will help you with preparing for your certification exam for SAP Solution Manager 4.0 Operations, which I have passed after attending the SM100 course and reading this book. Much (but not all) of the information in SM100 is also covered in the book in chapters 1,2,3, 9, and 10 (circa 200 pages). I agree with other reviews that it is not a step by step guide, but for that there is free reference material in online knowledge products

I just got this book here in Brazil and it's amazing.
A lot of usefull information about how to use and implement SAP Solution Manager. It's a great book for everyone who lives the daily adventure of implement any SAP component.

This book provides a good strategic overview of Solution Manager's role in a Netweaver installation. As such, it's good to place it on your bosses reading list. However, those looking for detailed "how-to" information to ramp-up are going to be dissapointed. SAP has considerable material available within their Online Knowledge Products related to Solution Manager 4.0 that can help jump start your training and fill in the details...

This book is great if you want to know all the functionality available in Solution Manager. Don't expect to see any step by step help to actually implement it. Good for managers.

Within minutes, this book and I were solving problems. The table of contents reads like a laundry-list of common Exchange configuration and management issues; each chapter takes a moment to explain the pieces of the puzzle, then provides step-by-step instructions for practical tasks. The conversational tone is frank and confident, conveying a sense of real-world experience.



An example: "One of the biggest complaints I hear about getting RPC over HTTP to work is that the instructions are not very good, missing, or just wrong. For that reason, I'm creating a step-by-step guide that includes the instructions I have found useful for successfully getting RPC over HTTP to work properly."



Sure enough, the instructions were direct and to-the-point, and the procedure worked flawlessly to do just what I wanted to do. This book is exactly what I was looking for.

Even after three years of using exchange 2003 I still sometimes use this book. I would recomend it to anybody who has to manage exchange servers.

I started out with step by step Exchange instruction books and, although they were useful and helpful, I was eventually left wanting. Especially for best practices, day to day stuff, security, and disaster recovery. Then I stumbled on this book and haven't looked back. In a confident, friendly voice McBee guides you through some of the most complex subjects and practices related to Exchange, and when he's done you won't be left hanging. I see he's just released an updated version. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

I need to learn Exchange Fast. Too many paragraphs seem to open or be sprinkled with dialog that doesn't pass on substantive information. For instance, "If you are like me, you are saying to yourself...'self..." or "One of the most discouraging things is for a user to call up and say they can't reach domain xyz." Multiply this by 300 and 30% of the book is fluff.

I just cringe at the waste of time and pages with this style. I don't want to know how my soul will feel about an issue: Just note the issue and the data. If I want clever, I'll turn on Chris Rock or Steve Martin. If I want emotional hand holding, I'll turn on "The View" or Lifetime TV. I am returning this book. It won't do as a reference because of all the fluff. Many books are categorized by their size, and perhaps this was his way of making a bigger book that would look like it held more info or, in some cases, the author is payed by the word count?

When I started reading, "Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora Edition" I was blown away by the economical useful information presented in orderly paragraphs, helpful bulleted lists - pure information transfer. If Mr. McBee wrote in that style, I could learn without fluff induced frustration.

I have used this book for about a month now, and so far I have found it to be a very valuable resource. It does not spend a lot of time on migration strategies, so if this is what your are looking for you should find another book. Exchange Server 2003 24seven focuses on the day to day tasks any good Exchange Admin should be doing, plus some insight into how to do certain tasks that M$ doesnt tell you how to do. I would recommend this book to anyone trying to support any sized Exchange environment.

This book is great at understanding the major components of a Public Key Infrastructure and the surrounding issues. You certainly would not walk away being able to set up a PKI, but you would be able to discuss it intelligently. If you are trying to come up to speed on PKI, this is the book for you. The subject is too big to cover everything in one book; so, I would also recommend picking up some more books that look at security issues specifically. One recommendation is E-Commerce Security by Ghosh.

A very well organized and useful reference text regarding encryption na dcertificates. I was pleased at the singling out of PG and its differences versus other X509 standards.

Ford and Baum do a great job explaining the ins and outs of public key infrastructures, covering both the technical and non-technical (legal, administrative, financial, etc.) issues with clarity and insight. Chapters 6 and 7 are especially worthwhile for those looking at the latest IETF PKIX standards.

Highly recommended - This is still the best intro book I've seen on PKI. Precisely and clearly written. Can't wait for the second edition, though, as this edition is getting a bit dated.

This guys were great. Timely delivery and the item was in better condition then I thought. Will use again on next purchase.

If you are taking the Cisco Academy classes, you will wonder why this book is not a required text. I sure did. One of the other students in the class bought one in and, after taking a look at it, I ordered myself a copy the next week. The book very clearly lays out, with examples, the commands needed to configure Cisco routers and switches. The text does not give you detailed background as to what all the commands mean and the various options for each command, so you will still need to "know your stuff" in order to get the desired results. However, if you are like me and spend time trying to remember the right words to type in on the less common configurations, this is a great tool to quickly get you to the "Oh, yeah! Now I remember."

This is a great book, if you know about cisco. Is perfect to estudy for the certification

CCNA Portable Command Guide (2nd Edition) (Self-Study Guide)
I am new to Cisco devices and have a a fair amount of them in my new job. This book is great since it balances small size with great information. If you want to do something you just look at the table of contents and pick router, switch, etc. Then you go to that section and it tells you how to perform commands on the device and what ones you need to use. Perfect for the new person or the experienced one that needs help remembering all the commands and there are a lot. I would recommend this book.

I rate this book with a zero (amazon requires me to supply at least one star, this is amazon's fault) hoping that the "usual" mistake will never appear again in Cisco Press books. I have sent e-mail about this to Cisco Press many years ago. Still, authors do not seem to get it. Perhaps a zero rating might help.

The book has just been delivered to me. I open and directly look for the usual suspect. On page 71 it says that static routes that refer to an exit interface have a default AD of 0 rather than 1. This is awfully wrong. No routing protocol (neither static nor dynamic) can beat down Connected routes. If you do not know this, you know very little about routing.

Only Connected can have an AD of 0. (period)

This confusion comes from the output of the "show ip route" command for static routes that refer to an outgoing interface (says "directly connected" or something). This has nothing to do with the AD. Do a "show ip route " and you will see the AD of static being non-zero no matter what.

Other than this, this guide seems very covenient for review before the exam or a quick reference at any time. Sure it does not fully deserve the zero I give to it. Hope you understand the purpose of the zero. It has to do with the AD of 0 after all :-)

Good book for beginner, if you are just learning get this book.There are things in this book that took me years to learn by trial and error unfortunaely for me I only learned a couple of new things, but it did give me some certainty in what I did know. However Im now looking for a intermediate book which is what I really needed.

The book lives up to its reputation as being a beginners guide. Good resource for those now getting into computers. And, it also has some good steps for Vista too.

Like most people,i avoided the 21st century technology by continuly saying to myself it was not something i needed.I finally took the plunge,a friend set up my Toshiba A2125 and found the"Absolute beginners guide on your web page.It,s format coinsides with my 73 year old mindset.Congradulations Michael Miller

This a great book for aquainting yourself with your computer. If you are new to the computer world as I was you will find this book very helpful in taking control of your computer instead of it controlling you. It covers both versions of Windows: XP & Vista. I would recommend it to anyone just starting out. I think it would be safe to say it could save you a lot of time in the longrun and maybe keep you from pulling your hair out!

I have been using a computer for many years and still did not understand all the task/programs I could have been using. This book has been extremely helpful working as a primer explaining everything very clearly and is still up to date with the Windows Vista. I would highly recommend this book.

An excellent resource on risk analysis techniques and methodolgies. The breadth and depth of coverage fits a wide range of audience. I work in information security and found the concepts and details very very helpful and ones I could relate to in my work. The organization of the chapters and overall book is very logical and facilitates overall readability. I wuld highly recommend this book to anyone working in any aspect of risk assessment/management.

2 thumbs up!

After having read the book, I was left with a mixed feeling. The content of the book is OK. Not special, just OK. If this book changed your way of thinking about risk, then this is probably one of your first books you read on the subject. I give the book content 4 stars, since it's decent, easy to follow and fairly complete. Besides that, the author included three good articles at the end of the book, one of which (by Caroline Hamilton) is particularly well-written.

Now for the style. I can only agree with one of the other reviewers regarding the comment he made about proofreading the book. I wonder if the book was proofread at all. There are so many errors and annoyances in this book, it starts working on my nerves fairly quickly. To name but a few:


The writer contradicts himself on several occasions. Sometimes this gets hilarious:
- Page 30: [The cost/benefit analysis] is the most important step of any risk analysis process.
- Page 35: As discussed in the previous example, the scope statement is the most important element of the risk analysis process.
- Page 39: The most important element of any risk analysis process is the recommendations of controls and safeguards... etc etc.


I understand that mister O'Leary is his mentor, but don't tell me five $%^$@ times that he is the Director of the Education Resource Center (pages ix, 12, 13, 65, 66).


The spelling errors are a real pain in the butt:

- page 217: "Aurebach" instead of "Auerbach" (my favorite; it's his own publisher).
- page 16: "can shared" instead of "can be shared"
- page 36: ".appropriate" instead of "appropriate"
- page 43: "their role" instead of "his role"
- page 45: "control" instead of "risk" (last word on the page)
- page 46: "these" instead of "there"
- page 47: "guideline" instead of "guidelines"
- page 55: "their" instead of "its" (it refers back to "job")
- page 64: wrong comma usage
- page 71: "in" instead of "it"
- .....
- page 162: "Originizational" instead of "Organizational"
- page 217: "Ozierz's" instead of "Ozier's"


The writer uses the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V too many times. Definitions should be reworded, not blindly copied. See pages 7 and 57, pages 47 and 72 etc.

Sometimes bulleted items in the same list have a trailing dot, sometimes they haven't.

I can go on and on.

To wrap it up, the writing gets 1 star. Equals 5 stars. Which will be rounded to 2 stars, simply because of his sloppy writing. If the writing were better, I might give it 3 or 4 stars.

As a corporate leader and IT leader, I need proven methodlogy and opinion from experienced leadership. "This crucial process should not be a long, drawn-out affair." What?! This is an essential capability of corporate leadership. "To be effective, it must be done quickly and efficiently." Okay... Let's look at what the risk management process is and, today, consider that it transcends business and requires managers and executives who - just perhaps - grew up in the information age. They cannot rely on the work of those who did not, and/or are trying to market a product. Lead the way leaders of the future. Protect your business by understanding and managing it yourselves instead of following people who want to sell you books and make money off of your business core competence. It takes real leadership from informed management who did more than read a book. Understand issues, solve problems, hire people/leaders who know how to handle risk from all vectors and retain the talent that preserves the future of your business. Listen to them. Challenge them. Build a system that manages your risk. Maybe this book offers something, but be your best counsel.

This is a great book about risk. Very valuable. Written in a clear and easy to understand style.

A bargain at 5 times the price. You can't get this info and data anywhere else.

After reading a large number of security books and papers, you come to an uncanny realization: if an author does not misspell HIPAA in his entire work, he's gotta be good! But then again, if a guy was a CSO when I was just finishing my elementary school, I am sure he knows something about security...

Here is what I have to say about this title: it is good, but pretty dry. And I happen to hate dry books. However, I am willing to make an exception for this one, since it is a management book about security risk. It won't teach you how to hack, scan, exploit or protect and firewall, but rather how to define, document, manage, organize and facilitate.

I would recommend the book for those involved with formal risk assessment for organizations. Admittedly, I do not fit this profile myself, but I enjoyed it since the author presents a somewhat novel approach to security risk assessment (called FRAAP) and I was curious about it. I also liked the section on mapping controls, such as HIPAA to ISO17799, etc.

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA, GCIH, GCFA is a Security Strategist with a major security company. He is an author of the book "Security Warrior" and a contributor to "Know Your Enemy II" and the upcoming "Hacker's Challenge III". In his spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org and his blog at O'Reilly. His next book will be about security log analysis.

Hi,

This book is great for DBA and Developper alike. I would recommend it to anyone working with Oracle, even if you're not working to solve performance issues. With all those tips at hand never your application will suffer from poor programming.

Guillaume

I highly recommend this book as a handy reference to keep at your desk. It is full of handy tips and a great assessment for reviewing your own environnment.

I love reading this book. I typically read a few pages before bed. It's filled with lots of practical examples and suggestions. Very thorough explanations. Some of the examples could do with a little more explaining but overall it's still very useful.

This book manages all concepts, basical and advanced, and the reader can review and fortify concepts. The OCM Author with explains in an easy mode Oracle Products. Excellent book.

A "must have" Oracle book for anyone who works with Oracle on a day-to-day basis. The database efficiencies I have been able to obtain for my clients by simply using Rich's book as a point of reference are well worth the cost in purchasing it.

Adam Suber, Event Chairperson, Southeastern Michigan Oracle Professionals (SEMOP) Group.