Computing Internet Books

I found Kate BInder's book on OS X Leopard just great because it is clear-cut, direct to the point and succinct. It helps me out at every turn when I tend to mess up. Any ding-dong can follow the instructions and succeed working on the Mac.

LFA

This book is almost no help as it is absolutely basic, and does not tackle handling of any problems.
If I was not living overseas I might have thought about returning it the moment I flipped through the pages.

It is fun to read this colourful book. In addition to the fully illustrated steps with simple instructions, I find the 'tips' and 'notes' for working with the Mac OS Leopard very useful. I like to recommend this book particularly to first time Mac users. It has enabled me to start using my MacBook quickly.

I love this book, unreservedly and unabashedly. It's entertaining and informative, and covers the concepts recordists like myself need to know, and skips all the junk recordists like myself haven't any use for. It is concise where it needs to be, in-depth where it needs to be, and explains step-by-step how to use the program, hitting the high points while referring one to the manual for the deep, deep, DEEP capabilities of Pro Tools. As one who uses the computer basically like a very capable tape-machine, and as one who has no use for probably 80% of what the program can do, I found this book indispensable; it's sitting next to my Mac, on top of the Digi manual as I type, and I refer to it almost every session for one thing or another. Even if I were into electronic music or into slicing and dicing performances unto "perfection", I'd still have use for this tome, though I think I really love it because it seems geared towards musicians like myself: we're tracking live bands, real instruments, and we're used to using tape machines, and we don't care one whit what depths one can plumb with the program. I want to capture performances quickly and easily, edit out the coughs and chatter, and this book has helped with that immensely. The Digidesign manual is a fine thing, but one problem with the transition from analog to digital is in nomenclature; i.e., if you don't know what a process is called in the world of PT, good luck finding it in the manual. Things that should be easy to figure out and find in the manual, simply put, ain't, and the volume becomes 750 pages of frustration. Enter this book: the information I need is right where I think it oughta be, and the session continues rather than me having to send my band-mates home (again) while I slog through the Digi manual. Thank you, John Keane.

As stated, Keane wrote this initially as a guide to get his friends who had purchased Pro Tools rigs up and running. The official Digidesign Pro Tools manual is comprehensive, but not particularly instructional.

Keane provides the answers to all of the obvious "How do I do this?" questions, and throws in savvy engineering and production tips to boot. The addition of actual sessions to practice with is invaluable, since seeing is believing...and learning.

This is a great book for learning your way around Pro Tools. It's basically a Pro Tools course that you take at your own pace. A bit of patience is required because it's very important that you follow every instruction sequentially and specifically. If you do that, you will have a good grip on PT techniques when you finish.

The other reviews pretty much cover what this book is about, but here's another perspective. I consider myself an intermediate PTLE user, but recently upgraded from 6.9 to 7.4. This is the only book I found that covers PTLE up to 7.3.1, and I've found it very helpful in explaining many of the new features that 6.9 didn't have. Even some of the material I thought I knew is covered from a slightly different perspective, which was helpful, and there were some cool tips about things I'd never thought of before.

Overall, the book is well written and edited. I think if you're coming into PT from another DAW, this might be all you need to get to an intermediate level fairly quickly. (Wish I'd had it when I was first starting out.) If you have no recording experience at all, you might also benefit from a more basic primer on general hard disk recording. For a basic PT reference, I like "Pro Tools for Dummies". As others have pointed out, the whole topic of subtleties in mic setup and EFX for various instruments, mixing/mastering in general, studio layout, etc. requires its own material. Check out Bobby Owsinki's books on those topics.

I've used a number of these and this one seems to get down to the practical things that you need to know in dealing with recording with Pro Tools. It's been a while since I've recorded so this was sort of like starting over. This book takes you step by step in set up and gives good pictures and illustrations of what you're doing. It comes with some files you can load but it recommends that you create some of your own. I found that to be very helpful. It took me from hooking up any instruments, drum boxes, or whatever to recording something to work with. It made it more "real world" instead of just following a file you've been given.

It's truly a book from a musician to a musician. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get down to recording!!!

Doug

My first edition copy of this book is dog-eared and full of bookmarks. This is an excellent tutorial on installing and using qmail. It includes step-by-step instructions for each task involved in setting up and administering (as well as customizing) qmail. Great text. Highly recommended. You don't need to be a Linux expert to install qmail if you follow this guidebook.

Dave Sill did an excellent job of showing how to setup email server. If you know some Linux commands, you'll have no problem setup your first Linux email server. I personally prefer Dave's Qmail handbook to John Levine's Qmail (I got as well). Levine's Qmail is an great second book.

Best Linux book I ever bought!

Everything you need to know about Qmail from installation and complete configuration. There is no other book.

After a month, and hours of installing and reinstalling FreeBSD and Qmail, I finally got the mail server working right! This was my first attempt at a mail server which I use for my family members and a few friends. There are a few errors in the book in some of the scripts which did cause me many problems. That was a pain. But, even at that, I don't think I would have been able to get Qmail running without this book. It is a great book for a person like me who is always doing something a bit over my head.

I just finished setting up a mail server at home and this book really made it simple. I'm not a novice, so I can't speak to it's ease of use, but the steps were simple, and a bit verbose and repetitive, but overall the book was invaluable.

I also needed DNS and BIND to get everything working just the way I wanted, so I'd buy them both.

Tim

It is a very useful book for anybody starting to use BIRT. However, some sections are slightly out of date vs. the new versions (2.2.2) of BIRT in 2007.

The basic concepts in this book are still very useful, otherwise it is hard to find online information explained in such a systematic way and in such details.

This book is an impressive extension on "BIRT: A Field Guide to Reporting". The latter described BIRT to a newcomer, showing how to use its features. With a minimal discussion of scripting for customisation. While the scripting certainly involved programming, it was rather minimal, and most of the text showed a declarative layout approach to using BIRT.

The Integrating book is the sequel. Strictly a programmer's book. It assumes you've read the earlier book. But now you need to take the customising [much] further. So here the text shows how to program in Java, not just JavaScript. Essentially, the bulk of the book explains the package org.eclipse.birt, which is freely available and has been built out with many classes. The problem to a programmer is the sheer multitude of those classes. An embarrassment of riches which the book tackles.

Some classes relate to customising the UI. There is a charting API built on top of Java Swing. So you can key off your pre-existing Swing expertise. Swing is pretty easy to learn, and the BIRT graphics classes seem to continue this property.

The only possible problem might be if you prefer SWT widgets for the better native look and feel. But the BIRT contributors correctly decided to support the most popular widget set, which is Swing.

Other BIRT classes relate to getting data at the back end, from various possible sources.

The value of a book depends upon what the reader brings; as such, the author must write to the state of mind of the audience. The reader who is contextually sympatico with the author will derive greater benefits than the reader who is coming from another place.

This book has strong context: readers who come from the media theory context will find powerful resonances with their existing intellectual framework. Other readers will scrape and scratch to find anything of merit.

My context is interactive storytelling. Truth in advertising: I recently published a book on the subject, and so might be considered a competitor. I do not, however, consider this book to be competitive with mine, not in the sense that it is inferior, but rather in the sense that it is from another planet. From my planet, this book appears to have plenty of interesting things to say about iamge and narrative, but when it comes to interactivity, I maintain that this book has absolutely nothing useful to say.

Consider the description of interactivity offered in these pages:

"Interaction can be described as many things. Catchwords abound: 'Engaging', 'Immersive', 'Participatory', 'Responsive', and 'Reactive'.
"Interactivity is a continuing increase in participation. It's a bidirectional communication conduit. It's a reponse to a response. It's 'full-duplex'. Interaction is a relationship. It's good sex. It's bad conversation. It's indeterminant behavior, and it's redundant result. It's many things, none of which can be done alone. Interaction is a process that dictates communication. It can also be a commication that dictates process. It provides options, necessitates a change in pace, and changes you as you change it."

I consider this to be high-falutin' drivel. Poetic drivel, perhaps, but drivel in the sense that it simply doesn't say anything that you can put to use. Take these ideas and put them into your mental thought-grinder and nothing comes out. They're Madison Avenue fluff, nothingburger sentences, full of verbal flourishes and pirouettes and signifying nothing.

The author is clearly a master of imagery, and has much that is useful to say about graphic design and the role of the image. If the author had the discipline to confine himself to those areas in which his expertise commands respect, he could have produced a fine book; indeed, when the book doesn't mention interactivity, it has much to offer. But the frequent poorly-considered discussions of interactivity ruin this book the way a burned sauce ruins an otherwise excellent entre.

Pause & Effect is a beautiful book. Definitely the most visual work on the subject of interactive narrative I have ever encountered. From its almost baroque design it immediately becomes clear that Meadows has a multidisciplinary background that among other things has seen him working as a game-designer, photographer, portrait painter and writer. Clearly, this multifaceted approach is the book biggest asset, as Meadows, rightly so, positions interactive narrative on the intersection of literature, visual art and interaction design. In his view, a successful interactive narrative finds a way to transfer some of the traditional control of the author over the story to the reader who must be able to "affect, choose or change the plot". Control over the perspective and time are important to evolve normal stories with its fixed chains of cause and effect, to a new level. And with a new underlying temporal structure of 'pause and effect'.

We should be patient, however, the new art-form of interactive narrative will not blossom over night. It took literature several millennia to evolve from its epic (with its base and violent interaction between characters) beginnings to the current intricate form, with all its depth and reflections. Most video games (the most popular example of interactive narratives) are still in the initial cycle of development, although some games hint at the next step in the is evolution after only thirty years of development.

To me the best parts of the book are the first 'dimension' (or chapter) which explains Meadow's theory of interactive narrative and the interviews that conclude the second and third dimensions. Meadows interviews the creators of some very good and important examples of existing interactive narratives. These people have many profound things to say, and it becomes clear that they were a main source of inspiration to the general theoretical framework of Pause & Effect. But close inspection of these interviews also highlights what I think is a weakness in Meadow's work.

The possible structures that interactive narratives can use play an important role in both the theory and the interviews. Meadows presents three basic structures (the nodal plot, the modular plot and the open plot) which can all be diagrammed as networks of nodes and connections. I understand that these nodes some how represent story-points, events or scenes and the connections possible routes or reader choices. This reduces interactive narrative to a rather discrete network of possibilities, whereas interviewees stress the fact interactive narrative should move beyond discrete plot trees and to more analogous story worlds or simulations. Such worlds cannot be expressed in these diagrams, rather these are expressed in rules of simulation and rules of interaction. This approach will more easily incorporate procedural or algorithmical production of interactive narrative. This is (and I am confindent that Meadows agrees on this point) where the future of interactive narrative lies.

The second weakness in the book is related to its interdisciplinary quality. Though Meadow's study is informed, it is not always as clear as I would want it to be. The many images are exemplary in this respect. The link with the text is not always apparent. In sometimes they are just illustrations, at other times they could be more integral to the argument of the text. But without captions and direct textual references you can never be sure. Many technical terms that come different art genres are taken for granted, as if Meadow's assumes his reader is as well-versed as he is in the arts of painting, illustration, writing and cinema. Sometimes technical terms have very different meanings in these different areas and I am not always sure which particular connotation is the correct one. Worse, I doubt that technical terms can be as easily transferred between the different media as Meadows does. Especially his discussion of 3D perspective seems to suffer from this a little.

Still, Pause & Effect is an important work. Its discussion on the use of time and perspective as important tools or structures for interactive narrative remain valid. Meadows multidisciplinary, eloquent and intelligent perspective is a valuable contribution to the emerging field of interactive narrative. I do not expect the "holy grail" of interactive narrative to be conquered anytime soon, and will not chastise every knight that does not return with the ultimate prize from his explorations. After all, as with any quest it is the journey that counts more than anything else, and as Meadows reminds us on the last page of his book "This is, as you can see, just the beginning". What fun would remain otherwise?

There are no new concepts put forth in this book, and worse, it's filled with painful stabs at humor, practically worthless information (most of which seemingly to get the reader from one picture to the next). I just don't think many people realize that Meadows has rewritten existing ideas as little "revelations" he has had himself, and so, I advise any prospective shoppers to move on, look toward online journals or monthly magazines in this field (like Speculative Reviews of Narrative, etc). There's nothing to see here.

I've used this book to teach interative narrative to both media arts and computer science students. It clearly (and dynamically) covers issues such as narrative, point of view, interactivity, and design in a way that students find compelling. By threading these issues throughout the book, Meadows reinforces how all are intertwined and equally important. My students love it, I suspect, because of the high image to text ratio... but the style gets them to see and think differently. Students are inspired by both the book's layout and the interviews with media artists. This book pushes them both to understand the multiple variables that go into creating interactivity and to take creative risks. You couldn't find a better text.

This is a beautiful book, more at place on a coffee table than a bookcase. It benefits not only from its many full-color photos, graphic reproductions, and illustrations, but also from the freedom Meadows had to lay out these images with the text on the page, creating effects more typically seen on complex web pages than in traditional print books. From the Use-Case Scenario flow charts to the flipbook narrative that appears in the upper corners of the book and the related comic cell narrative that runs five panels to a page along the bottom of the book, Meadows is both telling us how interactive narrative "combines traditional narrative with visual art and interactivity" and showing us how these insights can be implemented in print.

Because Meadows believes that understanding the art of interactive narrative requires familiarity with a wide range of principles, he attempts to cover an ambitious amount of information in Pause & Effect. This would be challenging enough if Pause & Effect was exclusively an introductory "how-to" book for would-be interactive narrative designers, but the book, as Meadows says in his preface, "is designed for anyone interested in narrative art forms" (xiii). Therefore, Meadows is engaging a general audience, and does not assume any pre-existing knowledge in the field. While such a broad approach may be good for sales figures, it is not without its costs. His writing, while always refreshingly clear, is at times overly simplistic, leaving many of the good ideas he puts forth insufficiently fleshed out. Meadows attempts to compensate for this limitation by incorporating interviews and case studies that give the reader alternate viewpoints about the production of interactive narrative. The incorporation of complementary and sometimes conflicting viewpoints from important creators of interactive content adds depth to the work, making it more interesting to the general reader and more credible as a design "how-to" book.

The basic claims of the book are easy to understand. The book assumes that an author can combine narrative and interactivity and claims that the development of imagery in the Western tradition gives us crucial insights into how this process should work. Meadows' approach is to bring together traditional concepts of narrative construction, two-dimensional and three-dimensional art creation, and interactive systems design in a way that defines the role of the author in the new art form of interactive narrative design.

Meadows lays out his arguments very clearly, giving his readers useful background information and examples to illustrate his points. He also, in a style similar to a self-help guru, breaks down complicated concepts into easily remembered components or steps, such as his "Four Steps of Interaction": 1) Observe; 2) Explore; 3) Modify; and 4) Change, or his "Three Different Structures of Interactive Narrative": 1) Nodal Plot Structure; 2) Modulated Plot Structure; and 3) Open Plot Structure. Although this structure overly simplifies complicated processes at times, it is still admittedly useful for a book that is trying to be a practical guide as much as it is an academic exercise.

Even keeping Meadows' aims in mind, however, Meadows warrants some criticism about just how broad and introductory he sometimes is in the text. While a general reader, new to concepts of narrative and interactivity, will appreciate Meadows' approach, those well versed in the debates surrounding the contentious and provocative term interactive narrative will be surprised and disappointed by the fact that Meadows does not address the term as problematic at all. Although, to be fair, a great deal of the debate that continues to rage about the term "interactive narrative" has taken place after Meadows wrote his book. Still, his bibliography is missing some key figures. Perhaps this omission is because Meadows does not want to get bogged down in academic debates over ontology and taxonomy, which he may deem worthless and unproductive. It is a forgivable move considering the breadth of his work and how much he must leave out as it is. Nonetheless, these omissions are frustrating to those of us who would very much like to know how Meadows would answer the criticism levied against the term interactive narrative and some of the practices Meadows preaches.

The attraction of this book is the chance of serendipity. The sheer joy and possibility of thumbing through it and stumbling across something germane to your research, but totally unforeseen by you or others.

The book sits astride several disciplines. Mostly biology. But also computer networks, of which, of course, the Internet is the primary and largest example. But the book also covers some portions of sociology. The classic six degrees of separation between any two people in the world. Actually this is more a metaphor than the literal truth. But still useful in understanding human networks.

If you are currently working with some type of network, your expertise in it, while being a strength, may also be a weakness if it makes you unaware of qualitatively different networks that yet have some commonality with yours.

This book is awesome. Very easy to read & follow and quite informative. I was able to make a really cute flash within 2 chapters and 2 hours. I can't wait to see what I can do when I'm done.

Flash is a complex program with innumerable functions. Phillip Kerman breaks the program down into bite-size chunks and leads you through each one step by step. His explanations are concise and easy to understand and always followed immediately by practical exercises so that right from the outset you get your hands dirty creating things using the program. The absolute beginner will have a solid overview of the basic functions of Flash by the end of the book and be able to begin experimenting with a project. The book's well-organized structure and detailed index would also make it ideal as a reference tool for those who already have some knowledge of the program.

It takes FOREVER to get to the point and many times there is repitition over the instruction. Sometimes in the same paragraph! A good book that gives information yes, but it could easily have been cut to a third the size.

I bought this book last month due to some good feedbacks. But when I read, it seems the book is too much unnecessary words just to make it look thick but the actual content is thin. I would recommend to learn from the help section of the flash program itself. It's much more clear and right to the point not like this book. From there then google up and you will find a lot of more better tutorials than this book and best of all, it's free!

Hi all, first of all, I just want to thank all the people who had written the comments on this book. It had helped me a lot in making a decision in buying this book. Thanks.

As for the book, I just got it. I am in Hour 2 and so far, it has helped me soooo much. I am new to Flash and I think this will be a great book for all the people who are new like me. I gave it a 4 stars rather than 5 since I haven't finished the book yet and can't comment on the whole book. But base on the first 2 hrs, I think once I am done with the book, my rating would be a 5 star.

This book serves as both an excellent introduction to Webdav to get you up the learning curve AND a reference volume to dip into when needed. Great for any programmers needing to get a Webdav 'something' done.

Also, a pleasant surprise to find the index is actually useful.

This book is both a great review of the HTTP protocol and takes you from tutorial into the details of WebDAV. I had to write a WebDAV client and server application and this book make the work much easier.

It is obvious that the author has had experience with real applications and customer needs.