Computing Internet Books

Kevin Wallace, CCIE's AUTHORIZED SELF-STUDY GUIDE TO CISCO VOICE OVER IP (CVOICE), 3RD EDITION offers a college-level student's guide for the CVOICE exam 642-436, and is a pick for advanced colleges offering study in this area. Software programmers and students receive a manual covering all the elements of VoIP calls, dial plans, and implementation of gateways and Cisco systems. Both are highly recommended specialty acquisitions.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Well I originally bought this book to help study for the CVOICE exam. I certainly used it for that and then some. It covered all of the exam topics pretty well and for me was an easy read. I passed the exam easily. What I didnt realize was that I would use it even more after the fact for a reference. Definitely worth the money for this book.

As I did not understand FXS and FXO, I bought this book. But unfortunately it does not explain very clearly all the relevant analogue and digital trunk technologies. The exercises are too simple without any practical use, most figures are copied from Cisco web site, and some sentences are copied word by word. I recommend this book to those light readers only, who just want to understand some basic concepts. In my opinion it is not very useful for network engineers. Hope the new version will change a lot.

Kevin makes very clear and concise explanation of VoIP/IPT applied to Cisco equipment, sample configurations for dial-peers, differences between call processing methods like SIP, H.323 and MGCP, bandwidth usage on different types of media and networks and how to calculate amounts of calls to be provised.

I read this book primarily to pass the CVOICE exam.

First off, this book barely provides adequate coverage of the questions that come up in the exam. I kept seeing questions and thinking, hey, this wasn't in the book!

I don't think I would have passed the exam if I had relied solely on this book. It's got too many niggling errors and some poorly explained sections that look like the author was writing them in the small hours or after a few pints.

You need to check the web site, 3rd party prep guides and course notes to be sure of success.

The book is well written by an author who knows how to make effective presentations. This is not a "how to" book for mastering PowerPoint. It is a guide for how to use PowerPoint to enhance presentations. People who suffer through tedious presentations and yearn not to inflict the same on others will benefit from reading this book.

In his introduction, Rick Altman opines that his book attempts to reduce his billble hours by half, because of all the advice he has packed into its 271 pages. In fact, Altman's billings will probably explode because in this book he firmly establishes himself as the leading expert on every aspect of PowerPoint.

It is a remarkable acheivement. The book is packed with tips on the mechanics of creating PowerPoint presentaions. It is also packed with advice on how to make your PowerPoint presentations interesting. I have a number of books on PowerPoint and none are anywhere near as complete as this one.

While Altman covers PowerPoint 2007, his hints and tips are mostly applicable to earlier versions as well.

This is a book that every PowerPoint user, no matter what level of expertise they think they possess, should buy and read every page of. It is truly that good.

Jerry

Big "thumbs-up" for Rick Altman's "Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck..."

Everybody admits - our PowerPoint presentations need to improve. There's an understatement! But how? What can we do to make a real difference for our self - and our audiences?

Have stacks of PPT how-to books. This is the first one that finally got the mix of technical, creative & presenter savvy right. -- and the first (I think) that I actually read cover to cover!

The conversational tone of the writing was more like a personal tutor walking you through the subtle nuances of the software that both designers & presenters need to know. This book is filled with the great ideas, practical examples, and good background information you've been looking for.

There's a good selection of practical techniques you can put to work immediately -- they've already influenced how I think about the shows I develop. The methodology & layout made sense and was easy to follow to achieve the promised results.

There are also numerous links that enable the reader to download working examples of the techniques he describes, as well as valuable insights about complementary third-party software.

It was also a "shot in the arm" for a long-suffering PPT user trying to push the envelope a little with each show!

If you're not getting the results you want with PPT, quit blaming MS -- maybe you need to learn something new. This book is top rate.

Although I am a certified Power Point Professional I don't use Power Point anymore. Let me explain. Since Apple came out with Keynote it is far better so I left Power Point in the dust and has never been easier. For Power Point I will agree with the other commenters this book is one of the best I have seen even better than the "Dummy" books I used to recommend to my Community College classes. I would love to have seem a CD with some sample complete presentations.
The main thing I disliked about the book is the fact the illustrations are in Black & white. The only color is on the covers. I believe the book would be better if they were color and what is there would have better resolution.
I am a full time Minister and would love to see something from the stand point of when you have a lot of material you need to give the audience. I speak to the same audience 52 weeks a year and roughly do 110 presentations. I do pickup some points out of every book and this one is no exception.
I am waiting for a book, probably by a preacher who does as many presentations as a do to the same audience, dealing with how to deal with a lot of text putting full Scripture passages in the presentations.
This one is ok but I find it written more to the fellow that does business presentations. There is another audience unless I am the only Preacher that uses Power Point or Keynote.
Great job though Rick.

Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck
Altman's writing sets a new standard for "computer" books. I use the quotation marks because this book doesn't just cover PowerPoint, but also provides solid teachings on delivering more effective presentations, making it more of a "professional" book than one just on computing subjects. That aside, this is the best-written computer-oriented book I've read. Altman has an entertaining style while also clearly demonstrating his expertise on the subject through genuine tips and techniques that are easy to understand and use. If the title doesn't grab you the content certainly will.

This book is great, it covers all topics neccesary to pass the Exam 70-646. It also include real life situations that enrich your experience as IT Professional.
I recomend it.

It is a very good book for understanding TCP/IP protocol suite. It has lots of tools explained in detail to explore the different protocols on unix/linux based systems. Most of the protocols are presented well. It is a must have book for learning networking concepts. I highly recommend this book.

Either if you're a pro or a student, this book is a MUST-HAVE. "Buy it NOW, don't waste more time" is the best advice I could give to you.

This is a good book that covers all the fundamentals of TCP/IP networking. Good illustrations. Seperate chapters for each common application protocols.

This is THE BIBLE. This is the gold standard for the exposition of the TCP/IP protocol stack. Every other TCP/IP protocol book must be measured by the yardstick of this book. This is simply the most comprehensive book ever written on the TCP/IP protocol stack. It's crystal clear and utterly lucid. Stevens tome leads the reader logically, methodically and effortlessly through all of the layers of the TCP/IP protocol stack: the Link Layer (ethernet frames), IP layer, Transport Layer etc. All nuances of TCP/IP are discussed: Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), RARP, ICMP, IGMP, User Datagram Protocol, Transmission Control Protocol etc. In particular, the 135 page exposition of the transmission control protocol is a masterstroke. Application level protocols such as DNS, NFS, FTP, SMTP are discussed at length. TCP/IP Illustrated is Unix-centric. Given that the roots of TCP/IP are in Unix, every serious appreciation of the protocol requires at least a basic understanding of Unix philosophy. This book is a masterpiece of technical writing in Computer Science. Do not be mislead by the one negative review of this book on the spurious grounds that it is outdated. The TCP/IP protocol has not changed since the publication of this book in 1994. I have two copies of this book and will probably buy a third copy. I very, very highly recommend TCP/IP Illustrated Volume I.

This book has very well detailed TCP/IP information, unfortunately some of the information is outdated. The book is easy to follow, and would make an even better learning tool if updated. I bought the book since it was required reading for a class, but I would opt out for a younger publishing on this topic if I had a choice.

Thanks Gary & Dale for getting me up to speed in short order. Your book, Implementing and Administering MS Office Project Server 2007 is a great read and a great reference as we begin our MSPS Server 2007 implementation. I now visit the MS ProjectExperts web page regularly and look forward to more great insights and products.
Well done !

Jim Gibbons PMP
US Dept. of Labor
EITPMO SME

Gary and Dale have written many books, this is the best yet. I cannot recommend strongly enough that if you are about to embark on an EPM implementations, be you an EPM implementor or part of the organization the EPM implementation is for, you NEED this book. Given the time you will save and the added value you will provide after reading the book, the decision is a no-brainer: buy it!

Gary and Dale's book is VERY thorough, and well organized. Given that the book is an 8/12 x 11 paperback of over 800 pages, it not something to curl up with in bed! If they offered it in a loose-leaf form to put in a binder, it would be easier to handle. One annoying feature is that most illustrations are on the FOLLOWING page from the texts referencing them.

Gary and Dale, keep hitting it square on the head. This book is the best I have seen for managing project server 2007 and sharepoint 2007. I have looked at much of the Microsoft documentation, but this book gets to the heart of what is needed. It has great explanations and step-by-step procedures. I would recommend to anyone who is going to configure, manage, and monitor project server 2007. Also, it is a great book for those people who designing a project management office in their company. It will have you frame out your PMIS for your PMO.

As an EPM implementor and PMO Director at a technology company, my advice to you is this: If you are implementing MOPS 2007, buy this book! It contains outstanding practical advice and best practices about how to SUCCESSFULLY implement this tool.

My only regret is that it wasn't published before we started our implementation... it would have saved us several MONTHS of figuring out how do do it ourselves.

Note: I am in no way affiliated with MSProjectExperts, nor am I receiving any kind of compensation for this endorsement. These books have saved us tons of time and rework!

This is a good book with lots of details. I wish I have more time to study it.
Ed

The good: The book quickly dispenses what you need to know for the exam, then tells you what you need to survive in the real world. I.e. Powershell and scripting. Coming from a 20,000+ user environment it is refreshing to see a book actually written for the "real world".

The bad: I'm only through the first four chapters, and oddly enough I find myself actually doing the examples. To my surprise, about one in ten commands is flat out wrong. Parameters are specified that aren't part of the program being executed (p.122), PowerShell commands that are typo'd bad enough to throw errors that would be undecipherable to most people (p.127), etc.

And no, despite the fact that they show it about 20x, you cannot use %username% from the command line to set a variable with dsmod as they show it, since it uses the logged in users' username (the admin running the command).

If they would have proof read and tested these commands before throwing them in the book it likely would have raised by rating of this book to a five. However, it's hard to overlook such glaringly obvious and *frequent* errors. I hope the other books in this series aren't as bad in this department.

This book is an excellent resource to assist in preparing for test 70-640. Well written and very understandable. Delievery of the product was also great, and actually MUCH faster than I had anticipated.

The copy of the book I received on July 2nd does not include evaluation of windows 2008. Could be downloaded but not included on the ~50mb CD. CD has 295+ study questions and an ebook.

I recently recieved this Microsoft Press training Kit for Exam: 70-640,
MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-640): Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

After reading through its over 860 pages of information, I was equiped to pass the Certification Exam. Although it is an excellent tool for preparing for the test, there are quite a few errors in the text. The book seemed rushed, as if the writers were trying to meet a deadline. There are many references to outside sources for concept understanding throughout the book. Some of the answers in the back do not match the questions in the lessons from each chapter. A few mispelled/misplaced words, and some information, such as on Page 280 which states that you can troubleshoot RSoP with Gpupdate.exe is just not correct. The statement should say Gpresult.exe instead. Nothing that a little more proofreading would not have solved.

All in all, the book was easy to grasp. I was happy overall with the content supplied by the curriculum. Once the errors are resolved, I feel that this will be an excellent source for 70-640 enthusiast.

Este libro ofrece información detalla acerca de la arquitectura de OCS. El contenido de este libro es amplio, ofrece un nivel de detalle que no he visto en otros libros, de lejos el mejor. Para los que lo están evaluando, no lo pienses dos veces.

OCS is a powerful product, enabling many different scenarios, and this resource kit is a must for administering it.

Just having the tools and OCS PowerShell scripts in one place is handy, but what makes the *book* a great buy is the content around the tools and scripts. The book is neatly organized by different scenarios, and show each of the reskit tools *as appropriate for each scenario*. That's a big help, because there are many useful tools and scripts here, but identifying which one(s) to use would take a lot of effort without this focus.

The material itself is structured so that it's easy to find high level information, but has deeper information embedded. It's easy to get right to the practical information while skipping over the deeper technical content if you don't need it, but it's easy to find and dig into that deeper material if you *do* need it.

Because of the organization and solid content, you don't have to read the whole book to get a lot of value. When I needed specific information about the changes from LCS (the previous generation of OCS), or when I needed to figure out the best tools tools to use for the *new* scenarios, I got practical guidance, quickly, on the appropriate techniques and tools.

Best of all, the book is filled with detailed and interesting side bars from experts, both within the Microsoft product team and from outside experts with extensive real world deployment and configuration experience. They were so much fun, I found myself skimming the rest of the book, just to read these sidebars.

This is a good, detailed look at Office Communications Server 2007. It has a lot of nitty gritty details, including information on how to debug the system with a network monitor and low-level protocol information. Where the book really misses the mark, is for administrators who do *not* have a giant, multi-site, zillion server network. Ironically, most sys admin books feel like the author only had access to 1 server to write the book, and admins in larger networks are left with no details on scaling out. This book goes in the opposite direction; huge portions of it are devoted to large networks, and all of the examples are for large networks. As the admin of a much smaller network, I found much of this to be useless, occassionally confusing, and trying to put me on an implementation path much more expensive than it needs to be for my organization.

J.Ja

This book explain in good way the general architecture of Office Communications Server 2007. This Microsoft product have many features and many server roles to install and configure and in the resource kit there are some real scenarios descriptions that facilitate undestanding. In the book's cd there are some important tools for better management of the Server. Don't are developed in deep mode the integration with others Microsoft servers like SharePoint Server 2007 and MOM.

The OCS 2007 Resource Kit is a must have for any OCS administrator. It has all the details about Office Communicator you need to fully support and understand this complicated product. It has all the WMI settings that any admin would need to make changes to there environment. Also detailed diagnostic information about IM, Conferencing, Telephony is fully exposed in their respective chapters. I highly reoommend it.

This book covers the complex process of planning, designing and implementing service-oriented architectures that meet organizational goals. It is an essential companion to any software developer, architect, or project manager implementing-or thinking about implementing-a service-oriented architecture.

Thomas Erl in this book provides an excellent reference and an independent/agnostic view of SOA that is not cluttered with Vendor speak. What I thought was valuable is the definition of business benefits, case studies and the beginning of SOA Principals and terminology that provides an organization a mechanism to organize their efforts and improve focus. Having worked with Web Services since 2001 and implemented them at many customers, the application and discussion of WS in conjunction with SOA is very helpful.

I found reading this book boring after the first 6 chapters. What would have been more interesting is the author giving possible solutions (i.e. specific products) that could meet the specifications he laid out in each chapter. This book does not give specific real-world solutions that fit the descriptions and specifications that are described as constituting a Service-Oriented Architecture. After reading this book, I understand the architecture, but could not recommend any specific products that would fit the architecture.

It's hard to understand how the same author wrote this and SOA Principles of Service Design (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl) and Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services (The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl), both of which had more useful information in a much more compact package.

The only real use I can think of for this book is perhaps to quote in a sales context regarding the benefits of SOA to someone who hasn't heard of it. That said, although I believe in SOA as a powerful mechanism, I believe the claims in the book are less well supported then the heft of the book might imply. Other technical details like the importance of UDDI are largely out of date.

I disagree with some of the other reviewers who call the book overly theoretical: I would not give it that much credit. Theory would call on or reference solid research; this book provides anecdotal evidence at best.

Aside from some potential use to sales folks (perhaps why Sun, IBM and MS endorse the book), I think most will want to pass on this one.

If you want a book that covers most of the SOA standards in one place, this might be helpful. I think you could get that from Wikipedia. Lots regurgitation of SOA platitudes, not much value add. If you're looking to make the light go on about key SOA concepts, this isn't the book. It would make a good management summary of the technology, if it was about 1/3 as long.

Although this book didn't get good reviews, I thought it did a very good job explaining things to someone, like myself, with limited background and knowledge. It has been a good reference guide for me and it did remove the fear of getting started with a new technology.

This is a great book for getting the most out of your Apple Itouch. Explains in detail how each aspect of Itouch works and explains it in simple easy to understand english. For anyone who really wishes to use their Itouch to the max I would really recommemd it.

I'm happy that I purchased this book, in spite of some of the negative reviews. It is an excellent easy to understand reference for the touch. Especially those like me who are new to iPod. It provides what Apple sadly does not.

First, I do not own an iPod Touch. I have a Classic iPod with video. I was interested in reviewing this book because I wanted to know more about the iPod Touch and if it is really worth the money. Having read through several chapters, I am now planning to buy myself an iPod Touch, although I may wait a little while to see what the next generation is going to be.
Here is what I found out using this book. Apparently, those who bought the iPod Touch early on had to pay $20 for a software upgrade that enables features which provide Mail, Google Maps, Weather, Stocks, and Notes. All newer models come with that upgrade now.
The iPod Touch is almost like having an iPhone but without the phone and the $60 a month fee. It uses Wi-Fi, so you are able to do a lot of things online such as checking stock prices, browsing news, looking at YouTube videos and so on. It has a QWERTY keyboard which allows you to type notes or email. Videos can be watched in widescreen just as on the iPhone by turning the iPod Touch horizontally. Instant Messaging is possible using the iPod Touch, but iChat is not included. That is really what I am waiting for. I figure the time to buy one is when I can do a voice or video chat with my iPod Touch. Then who would need an iPhone? Of course, the difference is an iPhone can be used anywhere and the iPod Touch needs Wi-Fi, which is not everywhere--yet. Also, not everyone uses iChat, but a lot of people I know do.
If you own an iPod Touch, then this book will teach you how to set up your email, use Safari web browser with it, check for traffic conditions, weather forecasts, and buy music from the iTunes Store while using Wi-Fi. It also tells how the iPod Touch operates by the touch screen and using your fingers to perform different tasks.

I needed a book that would take me step by step through every keystroke for every feature. There are a couple of places where this is the case, but too often it said things like "you can do "such and such" and just leave it at that. I need to know HOW do you do "such and such"! The one thing I am really pining for is to be able to play games! A simple Klondike, or Twin Towers or Aces High... I can't believe that my beloved Apple would go to all this trouble and leave out a way for loyal septuagenarians to get games.

I'd have rated this a 4.5 if I could have.

This is an excellent book covering a very new subject matter. My only major complaint is that it seems a little rushed - I've found several typos, and even one section where a couple of lines of (important for that section) code are missing. (I figured out what was missing as I'm sure most people will.)

Also, the book is out of date. However, that is not the fault of the author or the publisher! It is that Amazon's service changes so quickly. The author and the publisher have made every attempt to mention the most recent changes to the service as of the time of writing, including pointing to places on the web to find out more information.

The material it covers is spot on. It goes through the different services that Amazon offers - including their storage, elastic computing, payment systems, and database systems. It clearly explains the disadvantages and advantages of each system, and provides -useful- code examples (in ruby) of how one can take advantage of the services Amazon provides. (There are examples in other languages, like Python, that the author makes available on the book's website.) Each section is devoted to a service for the most part, and the book is very readable.

As I said, I'd have rated this book a 4.5 if I could have. Outside of the errors due to rushing, it's quite useful and quite informative. The code is easy to follow, and I've found it very handy for working with the Amazon Web Services.

Well.. I have pre-ordered that book back in Feb and was very anxious to get it. I read it cover to cover and could not find any how-tos, migration paths, implementation ideas, etc.. AWS is a new concept so many IT Directors and sysasdmins who have previously deployed "three tier" structure (DB - MiddleLayer - Web server) are desperate to find how to migrate your typical "data center" / "managed service" / "colocation" into Amazon web cloud (EC2 /S3)- besides lots of Ruby examples that book has little to offer: no structure, no migration. Bottom line: if you want to start fresh and "play" with AWS -this one is for you, if you manage 4 or 5 or 20 data centers and concern about how many servers do you really need and how to move your high availability application to Amazon - you need to look elsewhere.

This is a good overview of the suite of services that comprise Amazon Web Services (AWS), I'd have given it a 3.5 star rating if I could. It talks about all of them, but it spends the bulk of its time, very reasonably, discussing S3 (the persistent storage system) and EC2 (the compute cloud - basically Amazon's Rackspace in the clouds) - each getting about 100 pages devoted to it.

As others have noted it is out of date - but any book would have the same problem due to the moving target that AWS is. The biggest news is that EC2 is going to be getting persistent storage, which I believe will change the game completely when it is rolled out to the public. Instead of needing some elaborate connection with S3, now instances will behave much more like a typical physical machine with real disk drive. The book, on the other hand, provides almost no real advice on how to deal with the problem of non-persistence of EC2's current storage mechanism. This is a signifcant problem that everyone will have to deal with and glossing over it is a failing of the book.

This is also a Ruby book, which I found fairly annoying. Nowhere in the description does it suggest that it is done in Ruby. And while Ruby certainly is trendy these days, the actual number of Ruby developers is small - it gets undue weight in computer texts. At the end of the day, though, it generally provides the actual request strings and XML requests and responses for non-ruby folk to come to their own conclusions.

This is a worthwhile book to get if you're interested in quickly getting a good and broad idea on how to work with AWS. It will give a good foundation to get more out of the documentation and forums found on Amazon's AWS site itself.

Excellent resource, but a bit droll. The content is laid out well, there are plenty of (working) examples, and there's pretty much no fluff to the book at all (in contrast to many O'Reilly books which add a fair amount of humor and distraction).
My chief worry when I received the book was that the title on the spine said "Programming Amazon Web Servcies [sic]". Yes, really the spine has a typo! The cover page does *not* have the typo. Obviously I was worried that the content might have similar brazen errors. But so far not so.
I'd recommend this book for anyone who needs an EC2/S3/AWS reference.

'Programming Amazon Web Services: S3, EC2, SQS, FPS, and SimpleDB' is a good resource for anyone that is using the Amazon suite of web products and need to learn more about how to get the most out of these powerful set of web 2.0 tools.

For anyone that doesn't know what these tools are, here's a quick one-liner about each:

S3 - online storage to store and retrieve data

EC2 - online computing to be able to run jobs on a farm of machines

SQS - web messaging infrastructure for computer-computer communication

FPS - flexible payment system for moving money online

SimpleDB - store and retrieve datasets online

I like the content of this book and feel that it plays an important part in this niche market but my major qualm is that the code is written solely in Ruby in this book. While that might appeal to a certain market, to only have this communication in Ruby and/or not use a more traditional language of the day I feel is a major mistake. For this reason alone I knock a star off but still recommend it to anyone looking to learn or use these incredibly cool technologies provided by amazon.

**** RECOMMENDED