Computing Internet Books

The only thing that I found helpful not in the Nagios documentation is the scripting piece. It provides good ideas for creating nagios configs for large environment quickly. I was looking for at least a detailed information on integrating it with a third party rrd tool such as cacti for creating trends based on historical data.

This book takes the fairly complicated matter of configuring Nagios for monitoring your network infrastructure and makes it straight forward. Kudos and many things to Mr. Josephsen.

I use Nagios heavily at my company and as a result, I've purchased all of the available texts on the subject. This one is simply the best work on Nagios available right now. It's clear and succinct where even the online docs from the Nagios project can be confusing. It covers things that the No Starch volume barely touches on (WMI Scripting and Nagios) and honestly, the diagrams and code samples are clear and useful in real-world application.

Really, buy this one. If you need another one, I would be surprised.

It's well written, but it didn't provide much more insights and coverage than reading the existing documentation you can download for free. There are also some glaring gaps in its coverage. There's nothing about passive checks! And I don't think it was written before v3.0 came out.

If you like written docs for stuff you reference often, it will be worth the money. But don't go to it with any significant troubleshooting problem.

Main benefit of this book is that it will teach you many things in a short time. You might want to purchase it if you want a quick start on Nagios, and don't plan to use Nagios on larger systems. Also, although the author's (brief?) style has some benefits, it also has some drawbacks.

Things like distributed monitoring, fail-over, passive checks,... are barely touched. If you are installing Nagios for the first time, you probably won't miss these subjects elaborated, because you will want to have it running soon as possible. However, I think the Apress book covers these advanced topics much better, and gives a more comprehensive overview of Nagios. The decision is up to you. I preferred the lengthier book with more things explained, although it was a bit harder to read.

One more thing that I disliked was that for Passive checks author references Chapter 2. I couldn't find anything about passive checks there, so I checked the Index. No mention of them there either. I gave this book a relatively bad review due to this kind of unclear issues and for the lack of distributed monitoring and failover coverage, which I think is very important for a monitoring system in a serious installation.

As said, some things are better in this book than in Apress one (like ie. Windows check explanation), but in general, Apress book left a better impression on me.

This book is a great tool to learn how to improve our development process. I'm very happy with my buy.

As an IT professional and software developer, I'm all for standards and processes. PSP - A Self-Improvement Process for Software Engineers by Watts S. Humphrey (Addison-Wesley) outlines a personal methodology for improving your development efforts. But it's definitely not applicable to all environments...

Chapter List: The Personal Process Strategy; The Baseline Personal Process; Measuring Software Size; Planning; Software Estimating; The PROBE Estimating Method; Software Planning; Software Quality; Design and Code Reviews; Software Design; The PSP Design Templates; Design Verification; Process Extensions; Using The Personal Software Process; Index

From an overall perspective, I think the concepts in here are good and the book is well-written. Watts has devised a methodology that a developer can apply on their own to improve their coding, estimating, and defect resolution skills. This is done by extensive measurement and recording of statistic and time taken to accomplish certain tasks. These numbers are transferred to forms that can then be statistically analyzed to see the trends and make corrections in your techniques based on personal problem areas. The advantage that this methodology offers is that you don't have to get buy-in from an entire department in order to implement it. Conversely, PSP can be extended to apply to a team development environment in order to improve everyone's ability to work and develop code as a group.

Where I start to have issues is that it doesn't translate well to all environments. It's best applied to situations where you're developing programs with actual lines of code (like Java or C++) that allow you to do things like count lines of code, program sizes, or function points. It doesn't address rapid application development (RAD) environments like Lotus Notes/Domino very well, as "lines of code" is often next to nothing. Graphical design techniques that code underlying "plumbing" will make your numbers seem very small. Counting and tracking defects could be useful, but once again you'll often have to ignore stats related to defects per program size. You'll also need to be pretty comfortable with statistics to work with this methodology, as Watts gets into some pretty large formulas to generate the "score" of some of the tracking measures.

This is one of those books where if I were coding 15000 line Java programs, I might be really excited. Developing in a RAD environment makes me see a lot of this as unnecessary tracking for tracking's sake. But if you're a "true software engineer" in the most traditional sense, you'll probably find things in here that you'll want to try out.

The intent is to reduce the defect rate in software. With an emphasis on doing this when we have several million lines of source code. All the more so if the application might involve safety issues or be critical to its company's bottom line.

Humphrey points out that the writing of such large code might typically follow practices used for code bodies orders of magnitude smaller. But that this leads to far too many defects. He explains that PSP offers a discipline for the individual programmer to follow. And how this can be scaled to a team of programmers.

PSP stresses investing in design time and review time, relative to the actual coding time. It's big on writing down the times spent on these stages, so that you have actual quantities to see and from which to get metrics. You cannot improve what you cannot measure. The review time is considered a good investment, for finding bugs here is inherently more productive than relying on a downstream testing stage or user feedback.

Perhaps the most contentious aspect is whether to do a review of your code before compiling it?! Many will not. After all, the compiler can swiftly find the syntax errors. Why waste time looking for these beforehand? Isn't this a retrograde step? The book's rejoinder is that syntax errors might be considered to be distributed like more serious logic errors. Hence, if you review before compiling, and find 80% of the syntax errors that the compiler finds, then perhaps you only also found 80% of the logic errors. Opps?

A simple and ingenious self diagnostic tool. But despite the logic of this, water will flow uphill before any significant portion of programmers adopts this method. Pressing 'make' or its equivalent to do a compilation is simply too easy. The book is on far more plausible ground describing the other aspects of PSP.

The book is good, every argument weel written with simple language and lesson tailored. PSP is a good set of processes to use in software development. If you wish to self study PSP it is good but you have to download a lot of material from the SEI website (exercises, workbooks and so on). Humprey write about process extensions but not so much as needed in practice. Also a more detailed description about PSP processes isn't present on the book so you haveto read about on SEI website material.

OK, this book is great. If you are looking for general non vendor specific wireless info this is THE book. The gentleman that wrote it Im told worked for aironet before cisco bought them and supposedly WAS aironet from an engineering point of view. As a result the book is chock full of info but , at times, it will put you to sleep. This is not the fault of the writer , rather, it is the fault of the execellent info. Lets face it folks, a lot of this is about as exciting as counting sand at a beach. I highly recommend this book for the level of detail it provides in a relativly short read. You might have to review some of it twice, but again, that is the nature of the beast. Anyone who has studied TDM or CWDM knows what I am talking about ;-)

The author does not waist words when explaining the various 802.11 features. Extremely dry and boring... Kudos to the person who can read this book and absorb the information. I felt like I was reading an RFC.

"Fundamentals of Wireless LANS", published by Cisco Press, is a most appropriate title. Having read other books that were intended to have a similar fundamental-in-nature content, "Fundamentals of Wireless LANS" definitely offers more detail. The number of pages alone - almost 800, excluding appendices - are an indication right away that this book will contain a sufficient amount of detail. The reference about the book being authorized for the Cisco Networking Academy Program is also appropriate. The book is definitely geared toward the use of Cisco wireless networking equipment.

The level of experience to fully comprehend the subject matter, and to perform the exercises throughout the book, are no more than that required of someone with CCNA-level knowledge. The focus of the book is on wireless networking equipment so, there a minimal references to traditional (wired) networking equipment. Also, the infrequent reference to wired networking equipment assumes that the reader understands the function(s) of this equipment, and again, this understanding is not beyond the level of CCNA knowledge.

The reader that will find this book most useful is someone who wants to develop a solid foundation in wireless LAN principles, and wants to gain that understanding from a Cisco-centric perspective. Also, anyone pursuing the Cisco Wireless LAN specialization certification will find this book as an excellent preparatory source.

There are examples that are illustrated in the chapters, along with examples on a CD-ROM that is included with the book. The examples throughout the chapters are extremely easy to follow; so easy, that each concept can fully comprehended without the use of any actual equipment. Of course, if the reader does have access to the actual equipment (or software utility) that are referenced in the examples, that will only serve to enhance the learning. Each illustration is well thought out, that makes it very easy for someone with good self-study skills to follow. Each chapter concludes with a list of the "key terms" restate where the focus was placed. Also, to challenge and test the comprehension of the material in the chapter, there are 10 questions that serve to reinforce the subject matter. Some chapters also contain URLs to Cisco websites that offer additional materials on the equipment or subject being discussed.

The CD-ROM that is included with the book is awesome. The CD-ROM is comprised of the following components: 1)Test Engine, 2)Photo Zooms, 3)Interactive Activities, 4)Demo Activities, and 5)references to other Cisco-related WLAN resources. The "References" to other Cisco-related WLAN resources include some tools and utilities that are right on the CD-ROM.

The Test Engine on the CD-ROM is consists of 2 components: 1) Study Mode, and 2) Practice Exam. The Study Mode component contains 296 questions, and the Practice Exam includes 70 questions. The questions cover concepts presented in all 12 chapters of the book. The Study Mode allows the reader to customize the number of questions to be tested, the chapters from which the questions will come from, and the time period (number of minutes) that is allowed to answer questions.

The PhotoZooms provide photographs of the Cisco WLAN equipment that is referenced throughout the book. These photographs give a lot of credence to the cliché - a picture is worth a thousand words. Being able to the equipment that is referenced throughout the book is invaluable. Also, along with each equipment photo is a description of the equipment.

The Interactive Activities section of the CD-ROM provides 42 hands-on exercises. The exercises are a combination of dynamic and static illustrations. As the CD-ROM describes, these exercises are intended to help the reader to "...master the basic Wireless concepts." These exercises are a bonus even if the reader has access to the actual equipment.

The Demo Activities on the CD-ROM contains 13 animated exercises. Once again, providing a most needed benefit to the reader that does not possess access the actual equipment and utility software.

On the inside front cover of the book, a comment is made that this book will prepare the reader to attempt Cisco Wireless LAN Specialist certification exam. After examining the chapters' and CD-ROM content, I have to agree with this comment. In addition to certification preparation, the book is an excellent resource for gaining a healthy understanding of WLAN fundamentals.

Without hesitation, I would read (and recommend) titles from Cisco Press - this title in particular. This book is just the book that I needed to gain the solid understanding of wireless technology fundamentals that I wanted. The illustrations and practical applications afforded me an understanding about wireless networking that I hadn't been able to glean from other books; books that were substantial in their own way but, nevertherless, unable to provide that fundamental knowledge transfer. The rating that I would assign the book would be a 5 - on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest.

At a total of 281 pages covering 10 chapters of material, this book is very compact, but every page is filled with relevant information.
The first chapter of the book quickly delves into Ethernet technologies - 802.3 ethernet frame formats, addressing, CSMA/CD, 10Mb,100Mb and 1000Mb.

The second and third chapters cover the physical and MAC layers of 802.11 technology extensively. Chapter 2 starts from service sets (IBSS,BSS and ESS),CSMA/CA and how it differs from CSMA/CD,and moves to 802.11 MAC layer operations. MAC layer operations include station connectivity - how 802.11 clients connect to the access point, power save operation and the different 802.11 frame formats.

Chapter 3 covers the physical layer of the 802.11 protocol - the sublayers, PMD (Physical Medium Dependant)and PLCP (Physical Layer Convergence Procedure); FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) and DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) and the different modulation techniques used in 802.11,802.11a,802.11b and 802.11g.

Wireless LAN security is covered to a reasonable depth. The authors give a brief overview of encryption and then cover encryption in the 802.11 standard which is basically WEP(Wired Equivalent Privacy). Authentication mechanisms - Open and Shared Key authentication and the security vulnerabilities in the 802.11 standard are discussed in detail.

One of the most important tasks during the deployment of a wireless network is the site survey. The decisions made during this phase are critical to the optimal performance of the WLAN.Chapter 8 points to the questions that must be asked during a site survey and the necessary tools required to successfully conduct a survey.

For a Ciscopress book this volume is not very Cisco-centric. There are few references to Cisco devices. The focus is vendor neutral, stressing the 802.11 standard above all.
From my point of view,this book is not targeted at helping the reader to pass any Cisco wireless certification exams. There are no cram sheets,questions, or hints. However, I believe the contents will go a long way in preparing readers for the new CWAP(Certified Wireless Analysis Professional) exam by Planet3 Wireless. This exam focuses on wireless LAN analysis - 802.11 physical layer technologies, MAC frames and the use of protocol analyzers.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a good understanding of what goes on behind the scenes on a WLAN.

I recently read the title "802.11 Wireless LAN Fundamentals" by Pejman Roshan and Jonathan Leary. ISBN: 1587050773. You've heard the saying that good things come in small packages. Well, this title reinforces that statement. The book is packed with information regarding 802.11 Wireless LAN's. Don't be thrown by the title into thinking that this book only covers the basics. In fact, this book covers the basics and much, much more.

The book starts off with fundamental concepts of Ethernet Technologies. Not enough to be a great Ethernet reference, but enough to refresh your memory or to get the flavor of Ethernet once again. The book then explains the essential concepts of Wireless LAN's. After some needed high level concepts are covered the book dives into the bits and bytes of Wireless networking, leaving nothing for the imagination. The physical layer details are covered extremely well in this book. There are great depictions that show the different modulation types, frame formats and field definitions of 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g.

An extremely important topic on Wireless security is cover better in this book than any other source that I've found. A chapter has been dedicated to the topic. The author's first breaks down the weaknesses in wireless networks then explain how to secure the Wireless network. This chapter is loaded with supporting diagrams and figures.

The other challenging topic of Roaming is covered in this book. The chapter goes into the protocol codes that allow mobility to be successful and the author's show a few ways in which mobility can be accomplished from a technical perspective.

QoS for 802.11, or 802.11e, is a great section pertaining to QoS in a shared media wireless environment. The chapter is a bit complex and allows some of the more advanced networking professionals to bite off as much as they can chew.

The book covers all the radio essentials that one would need to firmly grasp this technology without delving into the complex math behind it all.

The title wraps up with great examples of site survey and design considerations. The authors give sound advise on how to approach the deployment of a wireless network that will scale to meet the needs of future Wireless network growth.

With the help of the support glossary in the back, I'm much more versed on the smorgasbord of new acronyms and the technology itself, that Wireless LAN's have introduced to Networking community. The glossary makes for a great quick reference. What book would be complete without a good index. This book has a pretty good index that has most any wireless related acronym at your finger tips. Great for a quick find.

There are several figures, diagrams and tables in this book. Much more than what I've seen in most other books. The supporting figures, diagrams and tables help a great deal with sorting out the terms and concepts of this simple yet complex technology. The information in the book is mainly standards based and not much, if any, Cisco centric information. Which make this title valuable for anyone seeking to understand Wireless LAN's.

This book is best suited for any network professional at any level. There is something for everyone in this title. Sales Engineers will find this book invaluable as they are faced with the many tough questions and challenges from the inquisitive customer. Data Network Salesmen will benefit from this title by understanding what value Wireless networks can bring to a company and how to fit the needs of a company into a viable solution for customers.

Good book for learning the basics of computer such as hardware, software, and input/output devices, etc.

This is an interesting book to start your knowledge on the Technology field. However, in comparison with other sources
(i.e. The Hardware Bible) it does not have the broadness on
certain subjects.Overall this title is excellent when you want to start in the technology of communications.

I used this book when I was teaching junior high computer literacy; that was five years ago and even then it got rave reviews from the students AND parents. While some of the verbiage was a bit complicated for junior high age, I just directed them to skip certain sections. The pictures and explanations continue to be excellent--certainly, the best book I reviewed on the subject.

i received a b.s. in mgt/mis in the 80s and recently took a self-paced community college course that used this as a textbook as part of a 2nd degree program i am pursuing. i wanted to refresh/update my knowledge in the field.

this is a comprehensive overview of computers presented in a clear way with wonderful study aids. i particularly enjoyed the programming, enterprise systems, and networking chapters. it also covers career fields within IT. what really makes this book outstanding is the website that comes with it. at the end of each chapter are tests and tutorials which you can do online. the labs are excellent and i loved the one on chapter 4 which explained the guts of the computer and then had you build one! it had you draw a network diagram and assign ip addresses. these types of tutorials really help "lock in" the subject matter. students today have the best tools to learn. i wish i had this 20 years ago!!

i recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about/brushing up on computer skills. for folks out of school, this is a great way to get the lingo.

to check out the online version go to [...]. each chapter is summarized on this site with a wealth of information to learn and explore.

Great book that summarizes ICT related information for High School computer courses.
Useful as a written resource for both students and teachers, and for teachers trying to help students look for resources beyond Wikipedia...
Basic information only, but covers a lot of ground. The best 'beginners' textbook that I have come across and used.

Reading a book like this makes you appreciate the rapid advancement of internet technology and the availability of online resources. In some ways this book reads like ancient history. (Remember Archie and Gopher? ftp?) That said, you can still learn how to use many older and traditional information resources, and the book's main focus -- becoming a professional information broker -- remains relevant and intact.

Part One, The Information Business, defines the market for information and the role and requirements of a professional information broker. Part Two, Fundamental Tools and Techniques, is a user-friendly guide to library, government and public records resources. These two sections are still quite useful, though obviouisly incomplete. Part Three, Electronic Options and Alternatives, is outdated, addressing no World Wide Web resources at all, though it does cover online special interest groups (SIGs) and bulletin boards (BBSs) well. Part Four, The Business Side of Information Brokering, is quite valuable and deals with completing a project, marketing, sales, pricing, contracts and billing.

Appendices cover essential resources (books, software and magazines), vendors, conferences, associations and seminars. An accompanying 3-1/2-inch floppy disk contains the appendices as well as electronic forms and letters, and a sample report. Stylistically, this disc is like a fine black & white movie. ASCII text files ensure accessibility by multiple platforms, and elegant but casual writing combined with beautifully-formatted text is information rich. If you buy this book used, make sure you get the disk too.

In short, while some of the content is quite outdated, this book and disk would still prove invaluable for someone who is interested in becoming an information professional. Rich in content, accessible in style.

A friend recently said I have "an almost pathological passion" for research. Yip, he's right! And this book, along with Reva Basch's "Researching Online For Dummies" has been of invaluable help. I read some parts of both nearly everyday. I've read in other reviews that The Information Broker's Handbook was skimpy on where to find info online. Maybe, but that wasn't the whole point of the book. And, at nearly 580 pages, it is more than sufficient in detail and is a clear, informative guide. Most people probably wouldn't pick a technical manual to read for recreational reading, but it is so interestingly written that it really is hard to put down, and you learn so much even from casual reading a bit at a time. I love this book, and couldn't do without it. It is perfect for information nuts, especially since the Internet is a knowledge junkie's paradise!

In contrast to Mary Ellen's book, this book is actually for self-starters who are thinking about creating their own small business and covers such excellent basics as the market for information, what an information broker does, the pros and cons of the information business, and then the tools, followed by chapters on marketing, pricing, and project management. Although seven years old now, I still regard this as a good starting point for those who would understand the information brokering business (a small niche within the larger open source intelligence business).

This is written in a breezy, but not simplistic style. Ninety percent of it is on the social and business aspects of being an information broker, so the book is good for that. Treatment of info-searching skills is rather skimpy and probably won't tell you anything that you didn't learn in college.

If you are considering information brokering, this should be the first book you read. It is quite complete, yet you can skim it easily because of how well the material is organized. This is an easy read, as well, thanks to the writing style. Most important of all, you will get current, practical and valuable information. Enjoy!

GIS, intelligent digital geographic information systems - are turning geography into a business science, and Measuring Up: The Business Case for GISprovides case studies about companies and government agencies which have implemented GIS solutions in their business goals and plans. Chapters show how to save money and time using GIS-based systems, how to use GIS to generate revenue and help budgets, and how to manage the resources and information bases resulting from GIS systems. The inclusion of over seventy articles from over twenty business sectors span the globe in experience and setting, creating a very specific, detailed set of insights on new GIS-driven business processes. Highly recommended.

I picked up this book at an ESRI User Group meeting. I had seen it advertised and asked the local ESRI rep about it. He gave me the book!

It is an excellent resource. It cites specific studies of GIS use to illustrate how GIS can pay for itself several times over. There are plenty of examples to cover a broad spectrum of GIS uses. There are several government examples, as well as some less known uses.

There is also a slide show / outline based on the book that can be downloaded from the ESRI website.

This is an outstanding resource for increasing the return on your GIS investment as well as to get new comers up to speed in understanding the benefits to GIS. As a GIS veteran who has trained new users as well as managers new to GIS in the public, private and non-profit sectors, this is the best book that I have come across to expose them to the importance of GIS and how it has specifically reduced costs, streamlined and improved service as well as perform analysis not feasible in the past. I gave five books to a world class City Planning, Info Tech, Neighborhood Services & Law Enforcement department managers (and kept one for me).

What I specifically enjoyed is that this is a "non-technical" book that focuses on several real world examples of how GIS technology has been used by real people, in the real world, in modern times and budgets and how they benefited as well as how much "$" it saved them. Full of color images and very easy to read. By seeing case studies of what others have done, I am now implementing some of the same uses. So even a GIS dinosaur like myself has been able to steal some wonderful ideas that make my bosses look great. Making them happy keeps me happy. A lifesaver for the new GIS person (especially management) and a resource for the GIS Veteran. Well done & highly recommended.

I found this to be a wonderful book about Search Engines. If you like history, math, computer science, and how we can make computers communicate effectively with people, then this book is a great read. With current Search Engines, we enter some words and get back a bibliography. I look forward to a sequel: "Answer Engines: How You Can Enter a Short, Simple Question and Get Back a Short, Simple Answer (NOT a list of things to read)!"

I wonder if I was reading the same book as a couple of the reviewers!

IMHO there are (too) many books in this field that deal with how search engines work, but the more 'slippery' concepts associated with how people actually use them to find about information have received much less attention.

The book provides a very welcome cognitive science perspective on a discipline often dominated by those who seek overly simple mechanistic formulas and 'answers' to very tricky 'questions'.

This book, aside from being horribly written, full of awful grammar and confused writing, everything being derivative, etc. (see the next review), suffers from over-stylization. The author seems to have just discovered the bold, italic and underline buttons of his word processor and does not hesitate to use them, along with quotation marks, all caps and margin notes, almost interchangeably. This makes the book very hard to read because your eyes are going from one... styled word or phrase to another.

Please, don't buy this book or use it for your course.

Bunch of blocks and citations from other authors with absolutely no explanations. It doesnt look like author understands anything that he borrowed from others to compose this book or dare to give one calculation example or derive a formula. Horrible, horrible book for a novice.

Though I have not Taken Dr. Belew's class, I know he is a consumate professional in his field. His Ideas are new and revolutionary. There are a lot of concepts in the book that I am still trying to grasp, but Belew really does a good job of explaining new concepts in a comprehensive way. He is really an asset to the Computer Science community.

This book has some wonderful information. However, I find it ironic how this book discusses accessibility and the book itself is not accessible! It is written in tiny, tiny font. I had to use a maginifying glass to read it! After struggling through a few chapters, I moved on to another book, Maximum Accessibility, with much larger font.

First of all, I would like commend Mr. Clark for addressing this topic at all. Accessibility is an important in computer development.

While the content seems to be accurate, and quite detailed to the point that you could use the information in the book to actually build a site with it, the writing is so poor and very difficult to read. Mr. Clark needs to throw away his thesaurus and hire an editor. He would be better off delivering his message in a clear and concise manner, and spend less time writing in a very "fancy" way that would be better suited for thesis papers rather than a book targeted towards the masses. This heavy style of writing makes it a difficult book to digest while riding the subway.

Pretentious - the one word I would use to describe the overall style of writing. This really put me off as a reader, making the content even more difficult to absorb. (In one case, the author actually explains his choice of word, "indention" as opposed to the more commonly used "indentation". His explanation seemed to imply that everyone who uses "indentation" is clearly *wrong*; two online dictionaries confirmed that "indentation" could have been used.) Of course, my opinion that the writing of this book is pretentious could also come from actually having met the author.

Read this book only if you really have the time to struggle through all his big words to get at the meaning behind them.

Written in 2002, this book is still considered the gold standard in web accessibility. I have no idea why. What Joe Clark has accomplished here is to spread about 20 pages of good accessibility information across a 400 page miasma. Most web designers don't care about the history of captioning and transcription systems--we just want the facts, man. What should we do, and what should we avoid. Best practices. Etc. That info is in here, but you have to cut a swath through the verbosity to find much of it. Or just read the last page of each chapter, which summarizes the previous 40-odd pages in six or less sentences. Save yourself the price of the book and scan through the entire text of the book online. In the end, Building Accessible Websites is an inaccessible read.

Right up front, let me say that I usually find web usability books are a major pain to read. The authors normally set themselves up as "experts" and present all their opinions as undeniable facts. While you can get good information from their writings, I quickly tire of the tone of "I'm the expert".

So why am I reading a book on web accessibility? Because I know it's good for me. It's a subject I don't know much about. And with this title, I was pleasantly surprised. This is a very readable book by an engaging writer, and it's a good mix of opinion, fact, standards, and practicality. It also helps that he doesn't much care for the "my opinion is fact" usability experts either.

With the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, public entities have to address the issue of making their websites accessible to various groups of disabled individuals. Clark starts off by explaining how visually-disabled, hearing-disabled, learning-disabled, and physically-disabled people use computers and the web. He then explains in entertaining fashion how each type of element in your web page can be made accessible to the different devices that are used by the disabled. The suggestions are also broken down into beginning, intermediate, and advanced techniques so that developers at all levels of experience can take positive steps towards compliance with accessibility regulations.

For Notes/Domino developers, you have the same issues to deal with as do web developers on other platforms. Since Domino applications on the web are often Notes applications rendered to HTML "on the fly", it's a little more difficult to exercise the total control that other types of web page coding involve. But you do have the "HTML" tag in the property box for each design element. By using that set of properties to add accessibility tags, you can go far in designing Domino apps that are friendly to the disabled. And if you work for a public organization, you may find that you have little choice but to comply. It might be a good idea to get started on the learning curve now.

Conclusion
If you are responsible for maintaining an organizational website and either have to/want to address accessibility issues, this is the book you'll want to get. Not only will you learn the "whys" of accessibilities, but you'll learn the different level of "hows". Highly recommended.

Am I the only one who finds the cover art to be a bit... questionable?

This book is not only an excellent guide to Ruby and Rails for PHP developers, it is, quite simply, an excellent resource on professional web development. It offers insight into how to properly manage a product and customer expectations, from the planning stages to site delivery. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Pragmatic has truly become the #1 resource on the market today for great Rails reference books and with 'Rails for PHP Developers' that tradition continues. With ~400 pages of material spread over 13 chapters, you will learn to get Ruby working with PHP and you will find that it's one relationship that is a happy one!

Rails is one of the newest "hot" technologies in the marketplace and it's due to ease of use and rapid deployment. PHP has been a web technology long popular for dynamic content. If you are an existing PHP developer that is looking to add Rails support to your web app, this is a great resource to have by your side. Content is good, and the "all bells no whistles" design serves well for the reader.

Easy to recommend, great to learn from.

***** RECOMMENDED

This is one of the first practical books to be published that is entirely Rails 2.0 focused, but its real strength is in the terrific, direct comparisons to how to accomplish the same tasks in PHP. By directly linking specific features, functions, and other programmatic process in PHP to Rails, this book lets you learn something new (Rails) by revealing the similarities (and differences) with something you already know (PHP).

The author is clearly an expert PHP programmer, and while you will certainly come away with an appreciation for the elegance and parsimony of Ruby the programming language and Rails the web application framework, the book is by no means "down on PHP." Indeed, I learned a couple of PHP tricks, that let me do a few (simple) Rails-like patterns in PHP.

In all, this is a terrific book, and if you're a PHP developer interested in learning about Rails, this book is *the* way to do it.