Computing Internet Books

Of the several Elements 6 books I've read this is by far the most concise and easily referenced.A must have for beginners like myself.

it was good transaction and the book is fine just that i am a visual learner and thought it would show more but it helpful

This book is far from complete in its content - there are better guides for the PE 6.

This book is written for the Windows version, but nowhere in the description is this specifically mentioned. For Mac users the first five hours (chapters), which discuss the Organizer (not in the Mac version of PSE6), are useless. Once you get used to converting Windows key strokes to Mac, the remaining hours are helpful but, for Mac users, Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac (The Missing Manuel) by Barbara Brundage is the better deal. If you can afford both books, fine, otherwise get the Missing Manual.

The Palm Zire is the workhorse of PDAs, It comes with two MB of memory amd can display up to fifteen shades of gray; and it is gloriously inexpensive. For many of us the Zire is all that is needed, and then some. (I have a few thousand entries on mine, plus some third-party applications, plus a book of poetry - Billy Collins, "Nine Horses"), and so far have used only about half the available memory.

The Zire is also delightfully simple to use. In order to realize its full capabilities, however, some help is needed; and that is where this book comes in. Written with admirable clarity and refreshing humor, "How to do Everything with your Zire Handheld" is the complete guide to the Zire. It explains the basics and much, much more. I regard it as essential reading for anyone with a Zire. It has helped me immensely. I have no doubt that it will help others.

In short, if you have a Zire, trust me: you need this book. Both informative and entertaining, "How to do Everything with your Zire Handheld"is a superb exploration of the humble Zire's extraordinary abilities. Until I read it, I had no idea that the Zire could do so much so well. It made me realize that the Zire is even more of a bargain that I had thought.

Great book if you're new to website administration and design. Contains crash courses in how the Web works, server admin, security, HTML, multimedia, and server-side scripting. Focused towards Unix/Perl with little or no coverage of commercial and newer products like Microsoft IIS/ASP, Cold Fusion, PHP, etc. Recommended for newbies.

This book tries to cover everything but just doesn't do that great a job of it. Lots of information on Apache and other Unix type data but virtually no reference of IIS.

It starts by giving the basic background info but some of this is pretty indepth which most poeple won't understand or want to know about how the internet works. Then moves to web servers with a lot of info on Apache for Unix, a decent coverage of Website for 95/NT (although I never heard of website - seems to be similar to Personal Web Server but it's not the same), and covers breifly WebStar for the Mac. This covers 150 pages but if you only deal with one system you can skip 100 pages here. It give examples of controlling access to the site using good screen shots of dialogs.

Then it jumps to creating web sites (fairly decent job but other books are better). There is also a lot of practical information about web site development that many people just don't realize which is included. It does a great job of listing numerous free apps to help out in creating html items and converters between differently formatted docs. The apps are listed by web site and email address - I didn't verify any of them so who knows how many are out of date by now.

Finally it finishes by covering CGI, Javascript (pretty well but again other books are better and more in depth) and Java applets - not how to program in Java. No mention of VBscript. Numerous problems in examples (especially with added spaces in code) cause confusion - whoever edited this obviously doesn't program.

Overall not a bad semi-starter for someone new who need to administer a web site and must deal with the software to control access and data. It's definitely not a programming book and because it tries to cover both Unix and NT (and a little Mac) I ended up skimming 20-40 page sections of stuff at a time that I wasn't interested in. 750 pages but about 200 really proved useful (mainly because there are better references for some topics covered like CGI, Javascript, and HTML). However I did really like the listing of tools to covert data and apps to help with site development.

I am giving this book 5 stars only out of respect for the fact that in its day it was the best of its kind and a great help in setting up a web site. I used it in a class I taught in the mid 90's and the students loved it. In fact, today, in usefulness this book is worth one star. What really scares me is that the digital video processing book I just reviewed, which is older than this book but still retains its usefulness due to its mathematical rigor, has a lower Amazon sales rating than this book. Yikes! The historical data in this book is OK, the basic skeleton of the facts are OK, but as far as the detailed instructions go, nobody builds web sites like this anymore! Not for at least 6 years! Why is this book still in print??? A good analogy is the upcoming "Rocky 6" movie. It was fine to see Sylvester Stallone play a washed up 30 year-old boxer making a comeback in 1976 in the original. The idea of him doing the same thing today at age sixty is just plain sad! Give this book (and the Rocky movie series for that matter) a decent burial and take it out of print!

I came here to see if there was a new edition of this book. I learned my trade as a web developer/web master from this book. But that was a while ago, and the landscape is just enormously different then when this book was written. Lincoln Stein is a perl/bioinformatics god. But this book should either go out of print, or write a second edition.

Lincoln Stein is basically THE guru of web site security. That makes this book, on setting up a web site, stand out from the rest. Heard about the recent attacks that brought down commercial giants' web sites? That's why the foundation of your approach should be sound engineering, with the bells and whistles added later.

Okay, sorry for the sermon. The fact is that this book discusses EVERY topic related to the world wide web. It gives a broad understanding, plenty of detail, and a lot of wisdom as well. I disagree with folks who suggest it is ``out of date''; it still provides the perfect foundation for anybody who is going to build a web site (or wants to know how they work).

If you want to use technology that isn't mentioned in this book, go ahead and get another book on that. But those are just details--this book is the bedrock and foundation. Don't hit the infobahn without it.

This book appears to have been written by academics. It contains a great planning strategies but very little in the way of practical information about how to actually design multimedia instructional materials. The accompanying CD is weak, mostly text and a bunch of supplemental forms and planing document templates. It isn't worth the money if your looking for a "nuts and bolts" guide to design.

Overly generous interline spacing has made a large book out of what is a effectively a small book. Much of the material in the book struck me as on the edge of redundant and out of touch with emerging developments. Many of the references are very dated (seventies and eighties material) and some are simply obscure. The book just isn't convincingly up to date.

The emphasis on form filling will appeal to all those types who like to run software projects by form filling. There is no creative thrust to this book and the complimentary technology angles are weak. The CD contained nothing that I hadn't been aware of in other modes or hadn't created with MS Office components. It is largely an irrelevancy.

For corporate types who want to roll out loads of flannel about elearning project management, this book may be a gem. For developers however, I would recommend Allessi and Trollip as a much superior text. Personally speaking, this book was not a good value purchase by me.

As a large, global corporation, we have over 15 learning development factories scattered around the world, including India and China. Lee and Owens comprehensive textbook provided just the right amount of information we needed to bring our large, diverse learning development population to a common level of understanding. If one could have only one instructional design textbook, I highly recommend this one. The organization is suberb and the forms contained on the CD are perfect for corporate use. Great book! Every ID should have this book on his or her bookshelf.

Multimedia-Based Instructional Design is a roadmap, a AAA TripTik?, to guide you on the complex journey from assessing the need for media-based instruction to the final evaluation and analysis of your results.

This book provides the plan and the tools to monitor the plan. It tells you what you need to do and strategies you may want to try. But it does not teach you step by step how to perform the work needed along the way. Multimedia development requires a multi-talented team, spanning a variety of disciplines-way beyond the scope of this book. You, as the project manager, are responsible for putting the plan into action, obtaining the necessary talent, supervising the production, and evaluating the results.

The chapters are short, simply written, and easily digested. The layout is easy to read, with large text and generous line spacing. The accompanying CD-ROM contains Microsoft Word versions of all the forms, checklists, and instructions mentioned in the text-plus Web-based tools to help you formulate objectives and another to help you choose the type of media appropriate for your project.

If you or your training department is planning your first foray beyond the instructor-led live classroom, Multimedia-Based Instructional Design will help you prepare a cogent plan, point out the potential pitfalls, and provide insight based on over 40 years of the authors' combined experience.

This is an easy to read guide that is extremely helpful. I disagree that this was written by acedemics with no practical experience- there is loads of practical up to date information. I would strongly reccomend the book to anyone needing a strong grasp on the subject and practical examples.

There are many books that discuss various aspects of cyberspace, but this one tops them all. Dated yes, but it will give the reader a very balanced look in an interesting fashion. Strongly recommended.

I feel that this book is quite simple and colourful, mostly are graphics with some paragraphs next to it. This book has a lot of interesting graphics, which I do not mind since it is an ATLAS. I will recommend this book for those people who is looking for some enjoyable reading. Since it has a very colourful pictures in every pages and the content is not too technical, I finished reading this book in half a day.

This was all I expected and more. Over 100 ways of presenting data about the Internet, including fantastic advances in data collection AND analysis AND presentation. Beauty arises from every page. You may need to have a love for mathematics, statistics, the Internet, or just art to "get" this book - but I have a soft spot for all four of those, and fell head over heels.

In "The Atlas of Cyberspace", I was anticipating a book patterned on Tufte's "Visual Display of Quantitative Information". Indeed, much of the graphical content of Dodge and Kitchin's book is beautiful, thought-provoking and informative. Unfortunately, the printing is unforgivably bad; the images deserve high quality renderings. Several of the most intriguing hand-drawn and computer-generated images are simply illegible; all of them have lost their textural presence and contrast.

The text, on the other hand, ranges from workmanlike commentary on the graphics to watered down post modern cultural analysis. Light editing could remove at least half of the illustrations, providing a tighter focus on the remainder. In many cases, multiple instances of the same type of diagram are presented. Although this may be a start toward serious design analyses, it's distracting in a coffee table book such as this one.

The organization is by content rather than by visualization type. The first quarter of the book traces the history of the development of the web, and attempts to map traffic patterns and growth. The next section concentrates on the informational organization of the web, as opposed to the physical or topological. The third quarter maps "community", including more literal instances such as MUDs, as well as purely virtual ones such as discussion groups. The weakest section of the book is the last, which traces "cyberpunk", represented here with quotes from Gibson and Stephenson. This final section includes gratuituous screen shots from "The Matrix" and even more gratuitous "analysis".

Despite this book's many shortcomings, there's no alternative, and the fraction of the images that are truly inspiring make "Atlas of Cyberspace" not only worthwhile, but almost necessary.

Miller gives a nice, very lightly technical guide to effective online shopping. To someone like you, maybe, who has never bought online, it can seem like a forbidding new world. So what Miller does is step through the fundamentals. Starting with a chapter giving a general guide to what you can expect at many online websites. One key thing you should realise is that the payment by credit card is really no different from traditional real world usage. Nor, despite everything you might read about online fraud, is it any riskier. But he does also go into describing those frauds.

He also gives brief but effective coverage of major online sites. Like Amazon and eBay. On the subject of using eBay, you can find entire books devoted to this. Miller's is more succinct, and is more than adequate to get you started on eBay, if you so desire.

The second half of the book is an appendix of useful websites, grouped by their main interests. A little mundane to experienced surfers. But perhaps not to you.

This book is all about how to shop on line and search for bargains. You will learn valuable secrets, find online coupons and find the list of more than 1,000 online merchants.

Chapter 5 is about hunting for the lowest price for an item that you wish to purchase. The top five price comparison sites are: BizRate, Froogle, mySimon, Shopping.com and Yahoo! Shopping. Other sites are: AimLower, CheapestRate, CompareSite, FindAll, PriceMix and EveryBookstore.

Chapter 6 is about finding rebates, coupons, promotions and cash-back programs. Places to find online cash-back programs are: askmrrebates, ebates, morerebates, paydrop, qdeals, rebateshare and simplerebates. Places to find online coupons are bargainboardwalk, couponmountain, slickdeals, totaldeals and ecoupons.

George MacPherson Reid (Hamden)

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the Hacking Exposed series was in an extended hiatus. It has emerged with a vengeance. Hacking Exposed - Wireless is just one of a series of new Hacking Exposed books and there are more to come throughout the coming months.

While it has been a while since there were new Hacking Exposed books, it seems like it has been even longer since we have had a new book on wireless network security. A topic as rapidly changing and evolving as wireless network technology and security needs updates and new contributions frequently to keep readers informed.

Cache and Liu do a respectable job of bringing the latest and greatest wireless attacks and security measures to the reader. The first chunk of the book- the first 3 chapters- are dedicated to providing a sort of overview of wireless technology and the history or evolution of network communication via RF, but then the book gets down to business.

The authors discuss how to enumerate and identify targets, and how to attack wireless networks, including ways to attack networks 'protected' with WPA encryption. Further into the book, they also provide coverage of wireless security in public hotspots, and a chapter on Bluetooth security.

Hacking Exposed - Wireless covers how attackers use various tools such as Kismet or Airopeek to identify vulnerable wireless networks, and how the Metasploit 3.0 Framework can be used to exploit and attack wireless networks. It also discusses packet injection and DoS (denial-of-service attacks).

Overall, I think the book covers the information well. It provides a good amount of detail about the flaws and weaknesses of wireless networking that can be exploited, and also instructs the reader on security countermeasures to defend against such attacks. Being the most current available also makes this book a must read.

When I read and reviewed Wi-Foo: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking three years ago, I was really impressed. Wi-Foo is obviously showing its age now, but a second edition is in the works. I was excited to see Hacking Exposed: Wireless (HE:W), green cover and all, because I hoped it would be just as good as Wi-Foo but covering newer topics. Overall I think the next Wi-Foo will be better than HE:W, but HE:W is currently the most up-to-date book on wireless security available.

Most readers can avoid the first 60 pages or so of HE:W. It seems the different authors wrote the first two chapters, and I doubt most of us need radio, cryptography, and other history lessons. This is supposed to be a Hacking Exposed book, which should mean introducing technologies with a security spin and hands-on exercises from the first page onward. If you want to really understand wireless, read 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Ed by Matthew S Gast, which was my 2006 book of the year.

HE:W begins to be interesting on p 61 with a discussion of "802.11 Packet Types." From this point forward the authors share many unique insights which are either obscure or not well covered elsewhere. I appreciated reading items like the fact that all access points on a channel should honor frames with CTS bits set -- even if the APs belong to different enterprises. Chapter 6 offered great insights on wireless zero configuration in Windows. The authors also demonstrate a powerful ability to explain the workings of various complex security technologies and their weaknesses, e.g., PEAP certificate failure attacks in chapter 7. Chapter 10 offered a story similar to that found in Syngress' Stealing the Network series, where an obsessed hacker exploits Bluetooth on a woman's Mac laptop.

I recommend reading HE:W if you want a modern treatment of wireless security issues. The authors cover many aspects of up-to-date features and weaknesses of wireless technologies, although the focus is mostly 802.11. While I liked the story in chapter 10, I would have also enjoyed reading more traditional HE coverage of Bluetooth outside the story format. Overall I think Wi-Foo II (arriving in November) will be the book to beat. If you can't wait that long, I recommend reading HE:W.

I have a ton of those red covered books on the book shelf. The Hacking Exposed series has been good to me and good to every person trying to learn security. So, I was excited to have my new green covered Hacking Exposed Wireless book show up at the house so I could learn some wireless hacking. The first 60 pages or so of background technical content is interesting but not totally necessary to get going with the topic. I do realize to be a good "hacker" you need to understand the technology, but the other HE's have been able to balance giving us the background and still able to use the tools for some hacking action.

I felt that once we finally got into the technical content (starts with 802.11 discovery) that they talked around topics but really didn't cover how to actually "do" anything. There isn't much to running kismet after configuring the one or two lines of the conf file. Then its a simple #kismet or $sudo kismet and it runs. Netstumbler is even easier since you have GUI to help you out and its on Windows and same same with KisMAC on OS X.

The cracking WEP section starts out with saying use an old kernel and the madwifi-old drivers. That may have been great advice when the book was published but it is certainly not useful for the average user today especially since it appears the bugs have been worked out of the new madwifi driver and aircrack-ng. (We do have to take into account that I read the book in Sep 07 and it was published in March 07). The section on using aircrack to break WEP on linux on pages 180-182 was decent but certainly not anything you cant get on the aircrack-ng homepage. A little more content on how we do fake authentication attempts and then why and how we have aireplay send our ARP packets would have been nice. The current version of aireplay when you run that capture makes you pick which capture we want to use, since they don't cover what packet to use it may be difficult for the person following along. The shell of the instructions are there, but the details are missing.
The opportunity to shine by talking about the Fragmentation and ChopChop attacks is devoid of actually using aircrack-ng or other tools to launch the attacks, so it falls short.

The Hacking Hotspots section (CH 9) looked to be the redeeming section at first glance but much like the WEP cracking section is lacking any useful screenshots or how to use any of the tools they mention. The most frustrating part was the author telling us how they have a slick SSH set up to use public hotspots but provides no information on how to set up one of our own. The tunneling using ozymanDNS attack gives no useful information on how to use the tool, the billing attacks section gives no useful information either. While I understand its illegal to steal wifi, if you aren't going to actually cover it, don't bother talking all around it. The client attack section consisted of installing nmap and nessus and running it against clients on the LAN. That section was the perfect set up to really cover KARMA in-depth, sadly a missed opportunity.

The bluetooth section (CH 10) that looks to be written by Kevin Finisterre was excellent and met the high standards previous HE books set. He walks us through a fictional scenario with real code and explains how we can use the code to exploit bluetooth vulnerabilities on OSX and gives us the link to the code :-)

Overall I was disappointed in the book which is unfortunate because the authors are known to be very knowledgeable and skilled people in the security industry. It can be a good reference on wifi background and hardware if you need one but it falls a bit short IMO of being as useful as some of the other HE titles.