Computing Internet Books

Released in early 2000, this was one of the first books about affiliate programs and it still sets the standard. While it didn't predict the demise of the dotcoms, this book is still very relevant. For the beginner, its basics and useful tips are exactly what you need to get started. But for the advanced reader, its unique and prescient predictions about where things where things are going are VERY interesting. (If you replace some of the book's references to no-longer existing companies with the newer term "XML Web Services," you have what amounts to a book that was written 5-8 YEARS ahead of its time! For instance, the authors were completely accurate in their prediction of the return of the importance of the individual/small site, a notion which was heresy in 2000 when the web was totally dominated by massive funded companies competing using millions of dollars from their IPO war chests. I credit the authors with this foresight and find their other 50,000-foot-level insights to still be fresh, insightful, and completely unique among the books I've seen in this category. This aspect makes the book required reading for anybody who thinks they know anything about affilate programs today.

The only drawback of this book is that many of the examples sited in the directory of affiliate programs are no longer around. But the authors do reference other affiliate program directories which still exist and that is really all you need to know to find suitable programs today.

I have to say that I had high hopes for this book. However, once I received it, I was dissappointed. Everything that is in this book can be found on the Internet.

While this book does provide a lot of information, if you have researched Affiliate Selling at all...anywhere else...you probably already know what's in this book.

Having said that, if you are looking for a place to start to learn about Affiliate Selling, this may be it. This book is written for the person who knows absolutlely nothing about Affiliate Selling. It goes over places to sign up with and defines what Affiliate Selling is.

Ignore all naysayers. This book is a comprehensive resource and the perfect introduction for those of us new to the industry. Well done!!

This is one you cannot miss! Well written, easy to digest, and so very eye-opening. It makes you want to read every book Helmstetter writes.

This book is copyright year 2000. Think about it! I just bought this book and I threw it away. I can't belive other people are selling this book on amazon. The title should be History of Affiliate Selling pre-y2k. There is No usable information in this book,Unless your are a history buff.

Now in a fully updated and significantly expanded second edition, "Software Testing Foundations: A Study Guide For The Certified Tester Exam" is the collaborative work of Andreas Spillner (Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Bremen University of Applied Sciences), Tilo Linz (President of the German Testing Board and the CEO of Imbus AG - a leading service company for software testing in Germany), Hans Schaefer (President of the Norwegian Testing Board and an independent software consultant), who are among the founders of the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB). This instructive manual is specifically designed by acknowledged experts for personal self-study and provides all the necessary information required to pass the Certified Tester Foundations level exam as defined by the ISTQB. This new and thoroughly 'user friendly' edition covers both a test-first approach and risk-based testing., as well as the fundamentals of testing, testing and the software lifecycle, static and dynamic testing techniques, test management, and test tools. "Software Testing Foundations" is a critically important and core addition to professional and academic Computer Science reference collections.

Are you a software tester? If you are, then this book is definitely for you. Authors Andreas Spillner, Tilo Linz and Hans Schaefer, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that offers basic knowledge that helps to achieve structured ad systematic evaluation and testing.

Spillner, Linz and Schaefer, begin by discussing the basics of software testing. Then, the authors discuss which test activities should be done during the software development process, and how they relate to other development tasks. Next, they discuss static methods. The authors also deal with testing in a narrower sense. Finally, the authors show you which aspects should be considered in test management, how systematic incident handling appears, and some basics about establishing sufficient configuration management.

This most excellent book is written in such a way that it does not presume previous knowledge of software quality assurance. Perhaps more importantly, this book is designed as a textbook and is meant for self-study.

There are now three well-known books on the ISTQB syllabus for foundation software testing examinations. This was the first, and the others may have since taken a different emphasis. Originally written in German, the book has been translated into English, and covers basic testing topics.

The difficulty about a testing book is that it will be read by testers, trained to find faults as part of our role in life. This book may to be aimed at the non-English, European market place, following its origins. Some of the translation is `interesting', and is more literal than catching the meaning of the words, so can read in a stilted fashion. Annoyingly, there is reference to `chapters' in the chapter on techniques, when it clearly means `sections' or part-chapters. The discussion of the value of a certified tester in chapter 6 would be better in the introductory chapter 1.

Spillner, Linz and Schaefer are well respected in the testing community, and have written a book that covers the syllabus. However, it is not greatly geared towards the examination; although there are revision questions, these are neither multiple choice, nor are the answers provided. There are also areas where there is significant extension beyond the syllabus content (standards is a case in point - and can probably be correctly attributed to a specific one of the authors).

There is a good glossary of testing terms, and the text clearly identifies items that appear in the glossary. It is useful to not only have web links, but also to specify when the web links were known to be valid. I found the use of a case study that runs throughout the book to be helpful. There are some key thoughts that are well worth remembering; one for me was "Robustness has its costs".

Strangely, I would say that there is both too much code (pseudo-code) present, and too little. It is perfectly possible to pass the ISTQB examination with little or no knowledge of how to read or write code, and references to code in early chapters could have non-coders pressing the panic button. Conversely, any discussion of structural test techniques should have examples of code, as exams routinely have code-based questions concerning techniques. The treatment of statement testing was somewhat shallow, with the cases where there are `empty' branches and non-empty branches barely distinguished. However, the coverage of when to use particular techniques was good and comprehensive.

Discussion in an early chapter postulates determining whether a set is code is ready to exit a particular stage of testing by examining the number of incidents raised per testing hour. It even suggests than when down below 2, it may be time to ship. This is a good notion, but I suspect the numbers are out by some way. To be still finding 2 incidents per testing hour, even on very large, complex systems, would indicate to me that the product is NOT ready for shipping. Additionally, the treatment of cyclomatic complexity is adequate, but this useful measurement is only calculated one way, not using the alternatives that are available (the most straightforward being `the number of decisions + 1').

There is a lot of material covered, and in some places, this appears rather list-like in appearance, unclear when lists are contained in the syllabus, and when not. It is better to say that the book assists candidates in preparation for the ISTQB Foundation, rather than being a direct aid as the sole point of reference. Read it take good things from it and mind the short-comings, but do not use it as your only testing book.

Peter Morgan, Bath, UK (morganp@supanet.com)

Providing you with exactly what you need to get started with building a ray tracer. Complete with sample source code, and a working program that you can use to build on, you don't have to spend hours figuring out where to begin or how to implement what you've just learned. All of the features of a ray tracer, from beginner to advanced, are covered in a way that any college level student could pick up with ease.

This book is a great resource for anyone looking to learn about ray tracing. It succeeds in breaking a complex topic down into understandable chunks that anyone with basic C++ programming skills can work from. It's also a very interesting read. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in this area.

College-level collections strong in engineering and electronics will appreciate this step-by-step description of writing a ray tracer from scratch. Chapters survey the ray-tracing concept, describing the images, sample code, and even linking to a website which contains the samples. Exercises support theory and hands-on application by instructing on adding features to a ray tracer. Any college-level collection strong in advanced information technology needs this.

The ultimate in detailed graphics is perhaps a ray tracing approach, since this derives from the actual physics of how light propagates through a three dimensional region, and interacts with objects in that region. Suffern takes an ab initio approach. Starting with elementary 3d vector analysis and then introducing the idea of rays. It turns out that you need to know very little physics to proceed into the book. Nothing at the level Maxwell's Equations, which is what actually describes light propagation to a physicist.

In programming terms (since you are probably a programmer), the book's approach is a factorisation of ray tracing into the portions needed for graphics generation.

The text is also well suited for a undergrad course. The chapters have many exercises; accompanied by a detailed website for the book. There are also many colour images that stand well next to the descriptions of the algorithms.

I know all of the other reviews are glowing, but I was actully disappointed by this book. While it is very thorough, I found the structure of the book to be haphazard and unintuitive. There are a lot of occurances of "but first, lets go back a bit," a sure sign of poor writing. While trying to keep to the problem-design-solution framework, the authors often introduced ideas in the problem phase, but never clearly addressed them in the design and solution phase -- often vaguely tying it all together with a statement like "and we took care of this problem as well" without really referencing it.

There is a great deal of information in this book, but I found it very difficult to extract coherently. And saying "but its not for beginners" is no excuse for poor writing.

OK Guys,

I recognized that every review is always so clean (no spelling mistakes, no grammar errors). Sometimes I think the Team itself writes some of them to impress readers. ;-)

I can agree that this Book is not to bad, but if somebody says it's the best way to learn PHP then he's not completely right.
There is no way that you can see thro the whole php-code without having read a "PHP-only" book before.
I don't say that every little step has to be explained (the book would be 2000 and more pages big), but i couldn't find that this book is not made for beginners anywhere on the book-explanation page.

Nice book, but please when you are a beginner, try a more explaining book first. Then go and buy this one.

Thank you

This is the most rock solid computer science programming text that i have read in the last decade.Period.No one should miss out on this buy.

(This review is of the Wrox Press 2002 edition)
This book gives you a thorough course in building a PHP-MySQL website, working up a complete system in stages. The book contains lots of useful code and techniques that can be used in your own websites. As a previous reviewer said, it is not for complete beginners in PHP/MySQL, but in combination with a good fast intro to these topics (I used SAMS "Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache in 24 Hours"), I reckon this book should be all you need to get your cool interactive database-driven site out onto the web. And when I contacted the authors to find the download code (which is available from Apress now that Wrox no longer publish it), they were extremely helpful. So go on - the software cost you nothing after all: why not splash out a few pennies on this excellent book?

There is absolutely no PHP or My-Sql teaching in this book. If your looking to see how a professional group of programmers use functions and how they outline their sites then this book is for you. BUT if you're looking for a book to learn any PHP My-Sql programming, don't buy this book. But if you do buy it, buy it used... It's not worth the new book price.

The company I work for installed the new office and when I first started using it I couldn't find anything. I went through a few Powerpoint books and found this one to have the best explanations. It covers just about everything I need, making a deck look impressive.

To be honest, I've always been jealous of PowerPoints that I see during company meetings. How do they make them look so good? Finally, I decided to invest a little time. My friend's friend works at Microsoft and told me that his co-workers wrote a book. I figured I would give it a shot. Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the book. I thought it would be really complicated, but little things go a long way to make slides look good and this book is great at pointing those out. Now, my presentations look clean, professional, and people are asking me for tips! It's great. If you want to impress your boss/co-workers with your PowerPoint skills, then this is definitely a good place to start.

As a student, I have only ever been expected to create the simplest of slide shows, and so my belief of the extent of PowerPoint's capabilities only stretched so far. However, with Microsoft's 2007 update, I thought it would be a smart decision to invest in a book that would guide me through the newest edition of PP. Well, after going through the book, I realized I got much more than I expected. Full of neat and useful tips, I believe that this book will truly benefit all of its readers in the long run.

Lots of useful tips on PowerPoint 2007. A lot of things have changed in Microsoft's 2007 update, and it's always nice to have a good reference so you can find/do what you want. I have not seen a better PowerPoint 2007 book.

Chock full of good ideas and helpful hints. The examples are really illuminating and the writing is exceptionally clear, especially the section on the XML format (which was what I was most interested in). In both business and academic settings I've found myself having to maintain a large number of presentations. Often there are slight variations between presentations (different customer, different conference) and this book helped me streamline a lot of that process. For instance, now I can easily update tables with fresh data! A HUGE win. Now I finally have time to learn the clarinet!

I would not suggest this book if you have owned an iPhone for more than a few months. It is pretty basic in the functions that it explains. Plus when the 2.0 software comes out on 7-11-08 a lot of the info will not apply.

I am a big fan of Scott Kelby books and have purchased many of them. His sense of humor and straightforward style makes learning complex topics much easier (e.g. photography or photoshop). I have to admit that I was disappointed in this iPhone book. If you know nothing about the iPhone, this book will provide a good start. However, I had spent a week with my iPhone when I got the book and after going through it cover to cover found only about 2 things I hadn't already figured out on my own. This is very different than his iPod book where I learned dozens of new things even after using iPod's for years. Also, because of the rapid pace of iPhone software updates, some of this was already out of date. On the plus side, the book is funny, easy to read and covers all the basics.

I wanted a book that gave me everything I needed to know to master my new iPhone. This book seemed like it was the answer, but I was dissapointed. No information as to iPhone file types, etc. The basic stuff was OK.

I got this book to help my wife better understand her new iPhone Christmas gift. As she was reading there was a great deal of laughter coming from the room, and I thought I was going to end up setting the phone up. Much to my chagrin she set the phone up and gave me a tutorial on stuff I did not even know it was capable of. Great book to get the most from your iPhone.

If you need a good, basic book to help you get into your iPhone then this is the one to buy. Terry and Scott do a good job of making it fun to read about the coolest phone on the planet. Now, if you are looking for a book to teach you how to unlock or jailbreak the phone, this isn't it. There are no secrets about using your iPhone in Europe, or adding it to your Verizon plann. However, if you want to know how to use all of the features that Apple built into the phone, and how to manage the ohone on your computer, then this is a good book. The authors add just enough silliness to make it easy to read and digest, but don't do so at the expense of the real material you'll be looking for.

Hackers and Painters is a good read. I enjoyed learning about the author's perspective on programming trends. I really enjoyed learning about his enthusiasm for Lisp. This book is not a how-to, but a collection of essays describing the authors views, opinions, and experiences with various programming topics. I definitely recommend it.

The book particularly deals with the nexus between programming, creativity, social commentary, wealth-generation, business-personal-entrepreneurial psychology (his specialty!) and LISP-related stuff. I skipped the programming sections because Im not a programmer. The philosophical commentary was better than 90% of other philosophy books I've read, more cutting and more true-to-life.

I was entertained and greatly appreciated the view of the author but the many times I completely disagreed (due to very substantiated reasons) made me skeptical of several ideas of the author. But, the reasons for him holding those views is, in and of itself, interesting. He does have several good and controversial ideas and his experiences are quite valuable to read. Most of the time, I found myself flying high with him as he stated things that really need to be said which ran against conventional thought. Other times, I found myself raising my eyebrows in bewilderment. After all, it really is a book about his thoughts so take it as such. His book, his soapbox.

The book reads well but really trails off towards the end. I found myself finishing the book just so I could say I was through with it. The opening chapters are quite entertaining. Read a few chapters that you find interesting and leave it at that.

Paul Graham is very clever (and rich - is that relevant?), however light also bends around his ego. Whether the sum of these qualities is positive is not absolutely clear to me.

If you want to read the best thing that he has written, you might be better served by his book on advanced Lisp programming, which is a monument anybody can be proud of - it comes close behind SICP on my personal list.

And, if you do read this book, I suggest you also look at 'The Science of Art' by Martin Kemp, which gives another perspective on the maybe slightly overweighted metaphor of the title, and the relation between theory and practice it implies.

In spite of the strong desire to punch the author in the face after finishing the book, there are many great truths inside. Basically why is it that most people think salaries on the same position should be the same if work results differ in orders of magnitude.

Also it's funny to see an ultra-capitalist criticize the western decadent corporate structure. It's The Market for Lemons all over the place.

Don't expect to find anything useful to make a dot com startup on this book. It's all anecdotes from his experience and his quasi-religious views. It's more rhetoric on Lisp than business.

As another reviewer said, read first his online essays before diving into this.