Computing Internet Books

As cellphones become ever more popular, and computational costs continue to fall, the prospect of ASR over wireless networks is attractive. So too is the use of ASR over the Internet (VoIP). The book describes the current state of understanding of both these ideas.

A common configuration is for the speech to be captured and digitised on a client machine [eg. cellphone], and the signal then sent over a network to a server on which runs the ASR. Several speech recognition standards have arisen over the years, to quantify the digitising and the ASR effectiveness.

For the ASR, Hidden Markov Models appear to be commonly used. The efficacy is described.

Maybe the most advanced topic is speech to speech translation, via handheld devices. Seriously difficult. Not only are there the problems of ASR accuracy for the input speech, but then the well known problems of Machine Translation of that to text in another language.

This book provides a good introduction to the overall architecture of WPF. However, it lacks the depth necessary to feel comfortable performing the more advanced programming activities that you will be tasked with on a real WPF project. This is really a beginners book which does not even advance to the intermediate level. The Programming WPF book by Chris Sells provides more in depth coverage of WPF and is therefore a better buy. Therefore, read this book just to get started but expect to read another to really make some headway into understanding WPF.

This book is all about the philosophy behind the WPF design and architecture. It delivers a simple but comprehensive understanding about WPF features - given this simple "big picture" it will be easier to learn the details - they will just fit in nicely and effortlessly. The book is an essense of everything that you should know to become a professional WPF developer - everything else is in IntelliSense/online help. Given this knowledge, you'll easily learn how to use any WPF topic.

Essential WPF by Chris Anderson is intuitive and inspiring. The author explains WPF in a baby-step-forward approach with mostly success. Nearly every facet of discussion comes with a clear example. For a 450+ page book, much of WFP is explained in a fashiion that intermediate developers (designers?) can comprehend.

But this does not mean the book provides buy-in for developers to use WFP instantly. For example, every time I attempted to "get my hands dirty", not long was I easily discouraged. I figured that I just needed to keep reading the book before trying again .. and again .. and again .. until I was out of book. From making a Windows application, to ASP.Net, to Silverlight using VS2008 and Expression Blend, nothing was easy enough to finish a small project much less an enterprise application. And then I would have to explain to my colleagues how it works.

In summary, Chris did an impecable job explaining the complexities and modeling of WFP. This book is an acceptable starting point. But do not expect to jump right into WFP during or even after reading this entire book. Rather take note that you *understand* WFP, and then move to the next reference of choice.

Chris has always impressed me with his talent to explain even the hardest bits of WPF in an approachable fashion - I guess many Channel 9 and other dev-related sites visitors would agree with me. Therefore, I started reading Essential WPF with high expectations...

There is nothing wrong with the book itself, but the marketing is completely and utterly false. Chris himself emphasizes that he would like to talk about the "why-s" of the platform and this is the very reason why I bought his book - only to find out that nothing like that happens. Quite honestly, any technical author could write this book after reading Windows 3.0 SDK documentation thoroughly - there is very little added value or insight. There are moments when Chris writes "this may be confusing..." and in this very moment, you would expect "... but it was necessary because of this and that" but that almost never happens. You are left with doubts about the quality of WPF which is probably the worst thing an author can do.

Don't be confused as I was: this book is not about "why-s", it is not about reasoning, it is not about in-depth discussion of some decisions made. It is an extensive walkthrough through the WPF features, it is a description of the framework but nothing more. Of course you will find some insights in this book but they are definitely not in proportion to Chris's role in the WPF team and his otherwise great skills.

I, personally, started reading this book as a big fan of WPF and was left with doubts if all the complexity is really necessary (and some things are pretty complex compared to Flex which is my current development environment). Actually, I think that I enjoyed reading the WPF introductory articles in the Windows SDK 3.0 documentation more and honestly, I thought that this could never happen when comparing docs and a book.

Anyway, if you really need great WPF book, don't waste money on this one - go buy Adam Nathan's WPF Unleashed. I'm on page 130 now and my enthusiasm for WPF is back. That book provides exactly what I wanted - deep discussion, great insight, practical tips, well thought-out structure and trust that the sub-optimal things in the current version are known issues likely to be fixed in WPF vNext.

If you're an experienced programmer and looking for a primer on WPF, Anderson has written a succinct overview that will definitely get you going in the right direction without wasting your time. It will give you not only the basics but provide an insight into what is going on and how you can go further in exploring WPF. Although it lacks in-depth examples (and source code) this book provides a readable reference covering all aspects of WPF- what it is, what it can do, and what makes WPF different.

The author brings up very interesting ideas, discussing how culture and technologies are inherently anarchistic, and how oligarchies are constantly trying to harness these for control & profit, which may end up damaging or destroying them in the process. The 'anything goes' trading of Napster wasn't good for artist and content produces, but the tied-down DRM world is even worse in the long run.

He definitely knows his material, but the writing just isn't that clear. He compares things to "Anarchistic Libertarianism" like I'm supposed to instantly know the ramifications of the term. I'd read a paragrah and realize I have no idea what he was trying to say.

There's a great argument to make here, I just don't think Siva Vaidhyanathan presents it very well.

While many academics do tend to "fog" their arguments I think this book by Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan of New York University is a fresh, provocative, and extremely readable discourse on the nature of freedom and control in a world awash with technology that is often over-hyped and under-analyzed. Prof. Vaidhyanathan is a fresh voice analyzing the extremely important issue of, in his words, the "availability and accessibility of the substance of expression and thus the possibility of public discussion and creativity" (185). As a veteran of the culture wars spawned by punk rock's initial social (and later in a watered-down form) commercial success, I have seen the reliance on empty sloganeering and naive calls for anarchy from punks who couldn't organize taking out the trash if they had all week. Prof. Vaidhyanathan rejects simplistic calls for decentralization and anarchy, and instead provides a rich and nuanced historical context for why we should return to what he calls "Civic Republicanism," a return to the idea of public trust and mutual dependency that many Americans have lost sight of in the rather simplistic way most debates have been framed in the battle over public control of information. One of the virtues of Prof. Vaidhyanathan's book is that he does not provide any easy answer or EFF manifestos, just a reliance on the basic responsibility of human beings to engage in meaningful dialogue about the Faustian bargains involved in new technologies. And in an age that promises unparalleled control and unparalleled, resistance, a call for a meaningful and participatory dialogue is a breath of fresh air.

If you've been reading Slashdot, EFF's newsletter, or similar news sources, you have already read most of the valuable ideas that are in this book.
If you know very little about the political issues raised by recent changes in technology, the first three quarters of this book might be as good a place as any to introduce yourself to the discussions that have been floating around the net.
The last quarter of the book deals with broader political issues where the author has no more expertise than a typical reporter, and is at least as superficial as what you'd find in a typical newspaper article. For instance, he says "The World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which exercise wide-ranging influence over the lives of billions of people in developing nations, clearly work for the interests of the developed nations." I say that they work for a much narrower set of interests, and are probably somewhat harmful to developed nations as a whole.

This is a book is on, the most unexpected subjects: Information anarchy in utopia, Information anarchy in dystopia and Information utopia?

These insights are from an expert who visualizes the effects of hacking, cracking and whacking in the world in general. And how such a scenario creates chaos in libraries. See for instance, computer filters (p. 38), effect of total acces (121-122), and terrorism (118-120, 122).

Contextually, this books sounds as a sequel to the earlier title by the same author, i.e., "Copyrights and Copywrongs." In considering structurally as a sequel, I am not in anyways special. Because, The Chronicle of Higher Education, in 2004, said it precisely in the following article: "In the Copyright Wars, This Scholar Sides With the Anarchists." (see: http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i13/13a02901.htm)

Nevertheless, Anarchist in the Library adds value to the existing literature on safety, security, and emergency preparedness.

Interestingly, The Anarchist in the Library deals with clashes and the limits of freedom in a world that continues to converge - in electronic, media and digital domains.

The Anarchist in the Library is a good reading for policy makers to consider issues in public governance in a situation that is loaded with smart-internet, as well as, friendly-access environment.

Anarchy is a governing system that eschews authority. Oligarchy governs from, through, and for authorities. These ideologies feed off each other dialectically; they are rapidly remaking our global information ecosystem: the increasing speed and amount of information and the basic paradox of the digital world onto the real world.

Libraries are never as placid as they appear. They are sources of controversy and conflict. After it was confirmed that some of the terrorists had used public computers in Virginia and Florida, the government decided they want access fo patron reading habits and Internet use. Thus, the USA Patriot Act came into existence.

The Patriot Act, signed by President Bush II, in October 2001, has turned into an intrusion in the privacy of library users and those who check out books. Anyone pretending to be FBI can check your account and no one will inform you.

The FBI is notorious for overstepping its bounds. This intrusion into patrons' privacy is against the Constitution. We are being denied our inalienable rights. The library is not just functionally important to communities all over the world, the doors should be open to everybody. Librarians are being forced to choose between their values, but they are supposed to support and protect the patrons. We are not to be intimidated by the choice of books we choose to read. I am using a diverse study among the nonfiction (simply because they are new), clearly not my choice of reading material, but folks on Amazon. com seem to prefer the newer books for their reviews.

As with Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, unclassified technical reports have disappeared from the Los Alamos National Lab web site. How is that possible? It never should have been put online in the first place.

I really like this book. I don't write reviews very often, but I was really impressed with this book. It is full color and very clearly written. I wish more technology books were this nice. It is asthetically enjoyable to work with.

I bought this book to try and get a handle on the new features in the product. I found some of the information to be inaccurate (not sure if it was based on a version prior to the version that Microsoft released or if the author was just careless) and some of the information that was included is confusing and hard to follow. I do like the quality of the graphics, but that hardly makes up for the other shortcomings.

There are much better choices available. I also bought Jim Cheshire Using Expression Web 2 and I found it to be much better.

One more thing. I'm not sure why the 5-star review that I see on this book appears here. It appears to be a review for the first Expression Web book from this author. It doesn't seem right for that to be used for this book. Strange.

This book was shipped to me on June 23, 2008. I picked it up a couple of days later to start learning Expression Web 2. I have been using FrontPage in a simple fashion for ten years. I was reminded in the Introduction to download the example files and workshop files from the Publishers web site.

I found the example files, but there was a note that the workshop files would be available 5/25/08. Bear in mind this was the last week in June that I was reading the note. I purchased this book thinking that these files would teach me how to post a reasonably simple CSS EW2 web site. I emailed Perspection and got a prompt response on 7/16 from the Author, Steve Johnson. Steve said there had been a server crash and they were redoing the files. I thanked him and have continued to check the Perspection site frequently. The note is still there on 9/9/08 indicating they would be available 5/25/08. Maybe they meant 2009.

So I gave up and contacted Amazon's instant call back service. This is a great service, and I commend Amazon. I got a lady whose primary language is obviously not English, and she informed me that since I was past the 30 return period, I would have to pay the return postage and a return charge. So I have written a letter to Jeff Bezos, the President of Amazon protesting. I trusted the Publisher and I don't think I should have to eat this book. I have spent several thousand dollars with Amazon this year, and I expect they will do the "right thing", but it sure is a hassle to have to go through this because of the Publisher's ineptude. This is an esthetically pleaseing book as mentioned, but it is not going to teach you Expression Web 2 even if you have a working knowledge of FrontPage. I have not been able to find a book yet that will do that. Too bad that someone does not seem to be able to write a book like David Plotkin's FrontPage 2002, which taught me how to revise my web site to include Frames and some other simple features in an easy step by step fashion. I am now studying some free Expression Web video tutorial sites, a couple of which are quite good, in an effort to grasp EW2 such that I can put up a simple web site in place of my current FrontPage site. Caveat Emptor on this book.

I'm at a moderate level of web programming experience and new to .net 2.0. I have referenced the book twice in a week for topics that I was having trouble googling. On both occasions, I found the topic directly listed in the table of contents. When I read the topic, the presentation of the material was straightforward and the examples were terrific for filling in some subtleties not covered in the text.

There were small pieces missing about hooking up windows security (examples helped me figure it out). It's also a VB-oriented book. The table of contents shows this book to be rich with different topics covered. In scanning the book, it looks like they will be similarly well covered.

In short, I'm thrilled with this book.

We bought 5 of these for our staff. I haven't gotten too far into it yet as we're really busy but we are being forced to move to .net soon so we need some materials. We researched several different books on this topic. This one is presented very clearly, lots of examples and explinations, reads well. Not super intense but seems like a great starter/mid level book.

Generally speaking, it's a good book for new features of asp.net 2.0.
Unfortunately, this big book still not include, two important parts of asp.net, ADO.NET and Web Service.

I bought this book just a few weeks back. And I've noticed that there are no database files in the CD. The author mentioned in the 8th chapter of the book " You can simply copy the database files(.mdf files) from the CD onto your local hardrive to use the sample databases". But I could see only the sourcecode files in the cd, no database files. That's really bad and I am very disappointed.

Trying to read most other book on asp.net 2.0 programming books are dull, boring, and mostly hard to follow. ASP.Net 2.0 Unleashed was considerable easier to follow steps and really hit on the concepts!

Why write a book about Amazon when all the info is on the website, you all ask? It's simple: to provide a hard-copy ready reference, and this book COVERS IT ALL. Everything dealing with both sides (buyer/seller) is here. Also is excellent for those new to the online-shopping experience. A crucial book, and a top-floor volume in the Dummies series.

I should have read this book first and avoided alot of problems THANK-YOU ILS.jess

IT says in the title this book is by "Mara Friedman and mara friedman" but do not be mislead, this is only one person so you get a biased point of view throughout the book. It's basically next to useless: you can't order things from the book, you can't start your own competing website. It doesn't even tell you how.

The "Dummies" series has really fallen down. The last good one they wrote was "Post-It Notes for Dummies" which provided a much-needed rarely-explored analyses of the history of the Post-it, misconceptions on the Post-it (they are not ALL yellow, believe it or not) and multiple uses for the Post-it. One time this model on the catwalk was totally covered in Post-its like she was wearing a Post-it dress. It was very cool.

In summary if you don't like leaving notes lying around DO NOT buy Post-Its and do not bother buying the Post-It book. Unless you want to start your own competing post-it company or something.

Amazon seems to have a lot of zombies wandering around. So many people jumping around screaming at one another about subjects they know nothing about. People that think Modest Mouse is the next Beatles, then of course everyone raving about Al Gore's new movie. The puppets dance and the crowd cheers for more as their marionette strings bob up and down. They scream when you question their intelligence and they cry when you make them realize that the Da Vinci code, and broke Back Mountain are fictional tales and not some kind of in your face "movement". What they need is a primer to help better guide the strings with. This book is a tool that they can use for that!!!

ok so i've never read this book, but if you need a book to navigate amazon.com, then you should just give me your money instead. I mean, I know it's hard to type a word and press enter, and then press buy; i think the real difficulty of amazon.com is how the author managed to write XXX pages about navigating amazon.com. Having said that, it almost makes me want to buy this book, so I'm changing my 1 Star to 2.