No comments about Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 2007 (Mastering).

5 comments about Web Design: Best Portfolios (Icons).

1. I reviewed another one of these books I bought at the same time as this one and it basically is the same review. The very most of the sites featured were done in Flash, which looks real good and inspires design ideas, but is very uninteresting for a web designer like me. These books should be called "Best Flash Portfolios" it would be more realistic.



2. As an amateur photographer, some years back I'd built up a simple site to show my images. It is pretty stale so I wandered the net looking what other photographers were doing. While it is easy to just wander around, it is time consuming for this research aspect.
   
   Looking at the latest web design books at the local bookstore, this one was titled exactly what I had in mind. Fortunately Wiedemann has wandered far and wide to gather this collection. Sitting on the couch, it is easy to thumb through and mark those you may want to see. Clicking on these is like a best-of and the sites are fantastic as far as content and creativity. While not every one will match your preference, there are more than enough that will.
   
   Many of the examples play heavily on Flash programming so it may be a bit much for casual site builders. To me, this book is a nice reference for those who want a site but may not have an idea which direction to pursue. Seeing the layout, this may be beneficial when farming this aspect out. You can say..."I like this feature on this site...can we integrate something like it in ours?" So by picking-chosing various features, one can develop a pretty nice atmosphere for viewers.
   
   You'll easily spend countless hours in fruitless wandering to maybe turn up 2-3 sites in an hour that really grab you. Then try and dig through your history tab frantically hoping to recall one particular site with a feature you liked. This book for the price is a no-brainer...BUY-IT! For me, the overall value in design layout, content, Flash ideas exceeds the price paid in multiples.
   
   The book's production values are first rate too. Well worth $10.



3. I am a web developer and purchased this book with a few others to sample the current design trends and to find inspiration for new design layouts. Quite simply, this book serves both purposes much more completely than I had anticipated.
   
   I picked up the book in a hurry, expecting only to find photos of sites. I was pleasantly surprised to find a bit more: the book provides a caption noting the languages/tools/technologies used to create the site, the names of the programmers (and, by logical deduction, the number of programmers it took to create), the number of hours that were spent creating the site, and the average number of hours that are spent maintaining the site on a monthly basis.
   
   It is true that most of the designs are created primarily with Flash. If you're looking for layouts to mimic using XHTML and CSS, well, good luck.
   
   Also, as a lifelong member of the Grammar Gestapo, I had quite a few chuckles when reading the introduction (the English introduction, that is--the book is trilingual, with the introduction, titles and captions in English, French and German).
   
   Despite the poor grammar (which is, I'll grant, better than that of most native anglophones), the book delivered much more than I had expected, and I am extremely happy with my purchase. I imagine I'll be carrying this book around with me for at least the next few months, glancing through it whenever I have a free moment on the bus or out at lunch.
   
   The book comes with a durable cover and glossy pages that smell great!



4. Great book and a nice compact format. Not a lot of text but visuals are why you would buy this book.



5. As someone doing web design, I bought this book to look at other designs, and how they were built. If this is what you're looking for, this book isn't for you.
   
   This book should be a coffee-table book, but is the wrong size and format even for that. All it contains is pictures of websites, and not at a size to to be considered art. Not helpful. If you want to browse websites, only looking at a picture, you can do that on the web just fine.
   
   This book should never have been titled "Web design". It's not web design, it's a vanity site on paper.

5 comments about Programming and Problem Solving With C++.

1. This book is OK, but it leaves a lot to be desired. For some reason the author has 2 different chapters on looping; it would make more sense to put them into one chapter ("while" loops in chapter 6 and "do while" and "for" loops in chapter 9...). Most of the examples used are convoluted or even as the author puts it "nonsensical." The author also has a tendency to ramble on. There is lots of additional text printed here. Chapters often span 50 pages, but maybe only 80% is really worth spending a lot of time on. Oh, this book also falls in the "expensive" catagory... $80+ for a paperback???



2. I am a computer science major and after reading this book I was confused. Programming in C++ for the first time can lead to many errors for beginners and seeking help from this book is not the solution. I had to visit my professor everyday after class just to understand how to program in C++, which made this book useless. I read the book over and over, the more I read it the more confused I got. I have thought about giving up in pursuing my major after reading this book. Try to avoid teachers who uses this book, it is not for beginners.



3. I am an intelligent, Ivy educated person who took Intro. to C++ and the professor used this book.
   
   This book had me from Chapters 1-5 but when it started Chapter 6 (Looping) that was when I decided this book was not for me.
   
   While the book is written well, my complaint it that it goes into too much nitty-gritty detail. Every rule and EVERY exception is covered in this book. I think they could have left some of this out and made the Chapters shorter and easier to read.
   
   But my real complaint with this book is that the theory in the text DID NOT help me with the lab assignments. While I gained a general understanding of the material, I was unable to successfully complete the lab assignments. That is due to the lack of real-world examples in this book.
   
   Long story short, this is not a bad book to learn C++, but you definitely need more resources to round out your knowledge.



4. I had to get this book for a class. Luckily, I had previous experience with C++. If you aren't required to buy this for a class, don't get it. There's too much jargon, not enough explaining, and poor examples.
   
   We don't even review it in class. Not one bit. We might do a review every now and then, but other than that, the instructor steers clear of this book for good reason.



5. We are very happy with this purchase. The book was in a very good condition; it is exactly the book we needed, and the price was very good too. Also, we received the book pretty quickly, thanks for the care and handling of the seller(s).

5 comments about Learning with Kernels: Support Vector Machines, Regularization, Optimization, and Beyond (Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning).

1. It is the best book on kernel methods. It covers a wide range of subjects.

   The best thing is that after finishing one or two basic chapters, you can read the rest of the book in any order; most chapters are almost independent to each other. At the beginning of a chapter, the authors list the prerequistites, so a reader knows whether he will be able to understand the chapter.

   For now the book still reflects the state of art. But it is a fast changing field. I hope the authors will update the book in the future.




2. Great book, but a word of caution, it is not for the novice.
   Book assumes a lot of background in functional analysis and
   probability. True, it has extensive appendixes but they are
   short-handing the relevant materials only. However, having said
   that, this is a book worth struggling with even if you have not
   yet got the intuitions in the above mentioned disciplines.
   
   It is worthwhile (at least as I can tell) to read the book
   skipping the tool chapters (2-6) going back to them when one has
   a point where those are needed. I found that to be much easier
   as it provides a concrete use of the methods putting them
   in context.



3. This book is at the right level if you are already strong in Machine Learning theory. (e.g. Tom Mitchell's "Machine Learning").
   
   Note that it is already getting somewhat dated. It for example includes little information on kernels for discreate structured input, such as trees and graphs.



4. The authors are young researchers who did their Ph.D. research in this rapidly developing branch of pattern recognition. Because they are young and are at the state of the art in the filed the book has sevral advantages and disadvantages and what I see as a disadvantage someone else might view as an advantage. Anyway here is my view.
   Advantage 1: Pattern recognition is a field of many disciplines. It has been studied by statisticians, mathematician, probabilists and engineering and people that call themselves computer scientists specializing in artificial intelligence. The field is old and has a long history but each discipline has developed their own jargon and many times the wheel has been reinvented. The advantage of this book is that these young scientists don't see that awful history. They have learned and mastered their subject in a basically engineering jargon but they include many concepts from statistics and statistical learning theory that are not common to engineering texts. This includes such topics as robust regression, ridge regression and spline estimation. Much of the classical statistical literature is cited. The book contains over 600 references including much of the authors own work.
   Disadvantage 1: Because they are young they miss some of the important historical literature and key texts. I found it a little disappointing that the bootstrap which is a statistical tool that has played a major role in discriminant analysis (particularly in the estimation of classification error rates) was completely overlooked. Also although many important texts on pattern recognition, machine learning and discriminant analysis are cited the fine text by McLachlan is overlooked as is the recent relevant text by Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman.
   
   Advantage 2: This book highlights the work of Vapnik and Chervonenkis and provides nice concise descriptions that one can easily refer to when needed. The mathematics is deep and includes reproducing kernel Hilbert space and many important properties from functional analysis and statistical theory.
   
   Disadvantage 2: The authors are more experienced at writing professional papers than at writing text books. Consequently the book does not flow well and the authors freely admit in their preface that it is best not to read the book in sequential order but rather to take the suggestions in the preface that differ based on the readers background and interest.
   
   Having said all this, for someone like me, who is very knowledgeable about statistical pattern recognition this is a great text for getting me up to speed on an exciting new area that I know very little about. I became curious about it when I started reading Vapnik recently.
   
   I am hoping that a careful reading of this book will give me an intuition about why this approach that incorporates kernel methods can be a powerful tool in pattern recognition and classification.
   
   This book should be a useful reference for anyone interested in this research area. It could be used in an engineering or statistics course in pattern recognition at either the undergraduate or graduate levels depending on what material is covered.
   
   In a recent communication with Bernhard Scholkopf I learned that his book was sent for publication before the Hastie et al. book went to press. So that is the only reason it wasn't referenced. I think that point is worth my mentioning in an editing of this review. Also on reflection I do not think the disadvantages are so great as to remove a star. So it is 5 stars for them.
   
   I can only hope that they will reference the work of McLachlan and Hastie et al. in their future books and research on this subject.



5. Excellent theory on SVMs and VC dimensionality. However, I found the chapters on optimization a bit terse. Otherwise, an essential reference for those interested in using SVMs in classification and regression.

5 comments about Manga Studio For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. Whether you have the intro version of Manga Studio or the Pro version (EX), you will enjoy having this book handy. The cheat sheet alone is worth it..! ~8) As with all the Dummies volumes I possess the editorial staff has done a good job of helping the author outline and bring to clear focus the elements most needed to provide you with the answers to 'those mind numbing puzzles' we who enjoy such things as beating our heads into our keyboard at times, come across in our search to produce the 'COMIC of all comics'... I learned of this book on the Content Paradise Forum, having purchased a couple of e-frontiers products and desiring more input from fellow users of the Manga Studio software. It is only from those that have been working with the software for a bit that you get the nuances that are not normally shown face up,.. and thankfully, Doug had help from others like 'pencilkiller' as well with the main info. Get this book if you have Manga Studio (the debut version or the pro) or even if you are thinking of getting MS! Get this book, it will give you a HUGE head start. Good Job Doug!
   One P.S. This software is NOT just for comix! It can be used for book illustration, architectural illustration, and commercial graphics (even logo design!) in combination with other graphics softwares such as PhotoShop or the GIMP, etc., so this book is invaluable in unlocking the 'keys to the kingdom' (so-to-speak)!



2. If you are new to the Manga comic craze or an experienced Manga artist, this book by Doug Hills will show you how easy it is to go digital with Manga Studio. Hills started creating comics by traditional methods and converted to digital over the span of several years. After experimenting with different graphics programs, he finally decided that Manga Studio met his needs the most. He now shares his knowledge of the software as well as some hard-earned experiences gained along the way. He not only has written Manga Studio for Dummies as a training guide for Manga Studio Debut and EX but he also teaches more general information such as comic terminology and storytelling techniques.
   
   For the beginners, Hills starts with the basics of Manga Studio such as the workspace, toolbars and palettes and points out how they differ from their counterparts in other graphics programs. Next, he covers scanning methods for getting your hand-drawn roughs into Manga Studio and how a pen and tablet can be your best friend. The third chapter is a quick-start guide that covers just enough information for you to create your first page in Manga Studio. You learn the basics of the Pencil tool for digitally drawing your roughs and then move on to the Pen, Marker and Fill tools for inking your art. Finally, you learn the Airbrush and Pattern Brush tools and techniques for adding screentones.
   
   Once you are familiar with the basic techniques, Hills dedicates the next chapters to covering each major feature of the software in more detail. If you have used any graphics software, you will probably be familiar with most of the tools and their names. But Hills discusses how each digital tool takes on different characteristics specific to Manga Studio. For example, you have the usual raster, vector and masking layers in Manga Studio but Hills shows how to use layers for comic-specific tasks such as managing your individual comic-style panels. Also familiar are the digital selection tools such as the Marquee, Lasso, Magic Wand, Quick Selection and Quick Mask. But, Hills discusses why these selection tools are so important for tasks such as adding screentones to selected areas of your comics.
   
   I have mentioned screentones a few times. For those unfamiliar with these little gems, Hills covers this topic well with a discussion of just what they are and how screentones are used to add texture, color and detail to comics. The Text tool is next and Hills discusses the basics for this tool such as choosing fonts and formating, but he also covers comic-specific tasks such as word balloons. For those who have Manga Studio EX, Hills covers custom word balloon templates. Finally, he discusses more advanced techniques such as coloring your comics, special effects filters, and creating your own custom brushes and tone patterns.
   
   Once your artwork is finished, it's time to publish your work. Hills discusses the many flexible publishing features in Manga Studio, the best output settings for home and commercial printers, and exporting your artwork in digital formats.
   
   If I had one suggestion, it would be to include more visual examples in the book, for those just starting out in the Manga world. The CD does contain example images from the book and bonus chapters that cover using vectors, importing 2D and 3D objects and some general Manga background.
   
   Doug Hills is the author and artist of two webcomics, Place Name Here and Chibi Cheerleaders From Outer Space. He is also a member of Ten Ton Studios.



3. What the Boss wants the Boss gets. "Animation project has to go into print first," He says. Already had Moho/Anime Studio so went to Manga Studio EX. Debut wasn't going to handle it. Need to learn the software fast? This is the book. Not a lot of hokey gags throughout the book. Instead lots of good useful information about the software. How to try different ways for tasks so that you find the way the best works for you. So you can keep on drawing your Manag or ANY style with Manga Studio.



4. Background:
   
   I have just recently acquired Manga Studio Debut, since I'm running Leopard on my Mac, I can't use Manga Studio EX. In attempting to learn the software more quickly, I picked up a copy of Manga Studio for Dummies. I've had really good luck with Dummies books in the past, so this book got my first try.
   
   First Impressions:
   
   My first impression of the book was that it felt rushed. It tries to cover a good number of topics about the software package, but doesn't really go into depth about any particular feature. In several cases, there is one paragraph that goes over several features, without a good demonstration of the features being covered. Given the fact that this book was a dummies book, I had expected a more grounds up approach. I didn't find that. The approach of the book is really more along the lines of: if you've worked with another graphics editing package, like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. then use what you already know and here are some of the characteristics of this software that differs.
   
   It's not a bad book, it just did not fulfill the task that I had thought it would.
   
   Issues With The Book:
   
   The legends. Or more specifically, the differentiation between EX features and Debut features. The book is in black and white. The legend indicates that EX features are in grey. I went through the book and only with some effort, was I able to see where the feature sets and coverage for one package and another one began and end. For someone using Manga Studio EX, this isn't a problem. For someone who is using Debut... it downright sucks.
   
   Suggestions:
   
   If you are looking for a Manga Studio book for the copy of Manga Studio you just got, this is, at this time, the only English offering out there. If you can read Japanese, you can look for Comic Studio (debut / EX / Pro ) books, which are in Japanese, and of which there are many many such books out there.
   
   If you are the author, I would strongly suggest putting out a second revision with better division and/or visual isolation of what is a Debut feature and what is an EX feature. I would also suggest adding a start-to-finish on using Manga Studio (debut or Ex/pro) to sketch/draw and finish a whole page.
   
   The flow of the book really didn't feel smooth. I felt like I was switching from reading a list of features with quick summaries to a two page write up of how some of those features, but not all, could be used on a sketch... except the sketch was just a bunch of circles and lines. One single picture of circles and lines. This didn't really help with illustrating what a particular feature did and how it would impact the drawing/sketch.
   
   I'm a big fan of supporting authors and good books, but I'm sorry to say, I had to return this book. Instead, I picked up two other books on general manga sketch technique since this book, which I went to the stores to specifically find, just didn't provide the information I needed.



5. Not all features (I am EX user) are explained in depth, and some of them are only noticed. But this book is for beginners. Complete deep reference would be 1500 pages, not 400.
   So I just hope someday Doug will write "Manga Studio for Advanced Dummies" and would fill those gaps. I will buy it.

5 comments about How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing.

1. Great book! I liked the way the author approaches how to begin designing programs. I am half-way through the book and I am finding it very entertaining. Yeap! I recommend this book.



2. As a programming do-it-yourselfer I've had many conflicting responses to this text -- it's didactic style, its attention to detail, its sometimes patronizing tone, its rigor and broad scope and at the same time its immersion in minutia and quiddities I have never encountered in 'computer books' I had ever perused. Perhaps it's my liberal arts background, or love 'em/hate 'em sensitivity to all those broad stiff-spined textbooks I had carried in back-packs since childhood, combined with a disdain for the authoritative stilted style these educators exude -- despite their patent love of their subject. I felt at once both patronized and condescended to.
   From the very start of their journey into a detailed six step-by-step process that show the reader how to analyze problem statements, how to formulate goals, make up examples, outline a solution, and test a solution the authors proclaim their pedagogical ends: "We [...] believe that the study of program design deserves the same central role in general education as mathematics and English. Or, put more succinctly, everyone should learn how to design programs..." This is not a textbook, this is a revolutionary pamphlet calling for educational reform. I had read nothing like this in the tens of 'Dummies' and 'In 24 Hours' books I had exposed myself to. One part priggish, two parts pedagogic. I often found myself asking for whom was it written? First-year college student?, ambitious would-be high-school programmer wanna-be? Math mavens? Surely not a middle-aged bookish clerk who tastes run more to Turgenev and Dostoevsky than Turing and Dijkstra. But then I demanded more than mere anonymous web-lurking from my lowly pc. I remember myself many years ago trying to learn BASIC on a massive time-share computer and telling myself surely there was had to be more magic to computing than this. Well, after reading more texts and having had to unlearn the 'Dummies' and the 'In 24 hours' style of disinformation I had finally found the marrow of a discipline that is as demanding as any I had ever come across and as vexing as any artistic rigor I had ever been inspired by. Come be confused, come be amused, amazed and intellectually abused. Sorely, if I find I have little talent for this excruciatingly logical endevour, I have also found a full-blown appreciation of such daunting computational cheekiness. Much to learn here, and this is only the "core subject of a liberal arts education." What had I been wasting my time on all those years as a professional student?



3. This book opened my eyes. I'd finished a Ph.D. in computer science, and had a decent exposure to quite a few programming languages and paradigms, before coming across this book. I was surprised to start working through this introductory book, and find myself learning new things! The book transformed my approach to programming.
   
   From page one, HtDP starts talking about good program design, and gives a methodical approach. Until this, I'd always thought programming books were "here are ten small example programs; go write ten more." That's hardly teaching. But HtDP builds up a straightforward design recipe, to guide programs along. If I get stuck or have a mistake in my program, 90% of the time I realize it's because I strayed from the book's recipe. The approach is language-independent, although some programming environments make it much easier to implement the design recipe; the book provides links to a good (free) Scheme environment, which it uses for its code examples too. (I've come to use that environment day-to-day). My code--in any language--has become much more robust, and when I do have a bug I usually locate it early, thanks to this book.
   
   In addition, HtDP made me think about things I'd taken for granted: How is assignment to a variable fundamentally different than assignment to a structure's field? Even, *why* do I use assignment statements in certain situations, instead of choosing a functional approach? How often do my programs actually need the efficiency of imprecise floating-point arithmetic, vs using bignums which totally liberate me from numerical inaccuracy?
   
   Although the text is available on line, I cherish my hardcopy. This is a book to first learn programming from, and one to revisit every five years.



4. I have been professionally developing software for about 5 years. I found this book to be one of the most useful and helpful books to help my coding skills. Even though I have been programming professionally for a few years and have a computer science degree, I learned a lot of new neat concepts from this book. It also helped to me to remind me of all the basic good practices that I have forgotten.
   
   It is also an excellent book for beginners. The books doesn't use a popular programming language like Java to accomplish its goals. Instead, it uses Scheme so the student can focus on the concepts rather than syntax. It also teaches great concepts and breaks the problem down on how to solve various problems. Also it isn't "hardcore" like SICP-- it is very friendly to non-MIT level people.



5. This order was handled above and beyond the call of duty. They handled everything, including the problem of USPS losing the package. No questions were asked and the book was reshipped immediately. Thank You for the great service.

5 comments about Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project.

1. It's easy to make the mistake of viewing this book as "too fluffy" or perhaps too soft to be of any use to the practical user or developer of open source software. Nothing could be further from the truth: in a classic open source way, the author has compressed man-centuries of OS community experience into a practical working guide for anyone who wants to do something serious in this area.



2. If you have already read pretty much everything that there is to be read about why you'd want to start, manage, fund or participate in an Open Source project, but want to know everything about how best to do it, then Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software is the book for you.
   
   Drawing from his extensive experience with the Subversion project, Fogel provides in this book a comprehensive overview of all aspects of Open Source software development, covering technical, social, political, economical, legal, and managerial aspects.
   
   While the book is more aimed at medium-to-large scale projects, especially those involving some kind of corporate entity, there is much in it that is applicable to most projects, excluding maybe only those little, one-man efforts that rarely become successful. But if you are the originator of one of the latter and, should it suddenly attract a wide following, you'd better be prepared to face the unavoidable problems that popularity brings.This book will come in handy in this case.
   
   Here are, in my opinion, the strong points of the book:
   
   * Providing a concise, yet comprehensive, overview of all aspects of Open Source development. This is really the manual of open development.
   
   * Demonstrating that there is much in open development that is similar to more traditional, corporate-style software development (you cannot always rely on good will and volunteers), but also much that is different, in motivation, rewards and objectives.
   
   * Putting the accent on the human aspect of development: mutual respect between participants is often the deciding factor in determining whether a project will thrive or fail. Since even the best of intentions sometimes are not enough to foster a peaceful, productive and collaborative environment, Producing Open Source Software contains a lot of useful, practical advice that you can follow if you want to keep developers happy and motivated.



3. Just yesterday I was talking to a friend about this book and we discovered each other very glad with it. First of all, the author has a lot of experience with the theme in question. Furthermore, Karl Fogel is very compelling with words. He knows how to write down his experience in a way that is pleasant, certainly due to a lot of writes he had made through plenties of open source projects.
   
   With this book you will be in touch with topics like the needed infra-structure to setup open source projects, the dinamics of the open source community, strategies for packaging and releasing software, common issues that arise in open source daily development and how to workaround then, a brief about licenses (with properly links for more information on this topic); just to highlight some aspects.
   
   This book was the first hand someone land me into the open source world. It's helping me in three ways: to extract more from open source softwares that already exist, to start my own open source project, and to look at software development through a new, different, and till now better perspective.
   
   Hope this review helps you!



4. If you are thinking of starting/managing a project in an "open-source" model, this is the book you MUST read.
   
   The book is very well written and goes over lessons learned of others that created their own open-source projects. Believe me... every step so you don't have to guess anything!
   
   How to start, how to document, where to deploy the project, what people to invite, whether or not coding standards are necessary, democracy versus dictatorship, all of these questions are answered inside.
   
   A friend of mine has told me that much of the information in this book can be seen for free in video in Google. It's worth looking for.
   
   I read the book in 5 hours and i think my time was very well invested. I now believe that this model is not only suitable for small projects but to larger projects. The complexity of the system will not the an issue if you apply the rules in the book. I still have to try it though... ;-)



5. Issues specific to Open Source are well-covered in this book. I found the section titled "Handling Difficult People" especially useful; his advice in this dodgy area is to act eloquent and keep feedback directed at the problem, not the person. If the person *is* the problem, nip in-public issues in the bud and contact the person directly to resolve the personal issue(s).
   
   Fogel presents lots of down and dirty day-to-day details on how to create excellent software. Not just Open Source, either... the transparency built into the processes he describes are also useful within a company firewall.
   
   Fogel places a huge emphasis on development by random unsalaried people, but I feel that most important and rapid development is due to corporate sponsorship.
   
   Overall: excellent. Read it cover to cover, refer back to it often.

5 comments about Unix Programming Environment (Prentice-Hall Software Series).

1. This is one of the best programming books I have. If you master everything in this book along with the "C Programming Language" and "Advanced UNIX Programming", you will truly be a UNIX programmer.



2. This book is the best book on programming on Unix. It is very practical, and it gives you a good understanding of the philosophy of the Unix system and how to use it.
   
   Unix is a programmers environment. Once you understand the foundation it is a very productive environment. It will show you the tools, the philosophy behind the tools, and how to be productive in the Unix environment. People who hate Unix haven't read this book or aren't programmers...



3. In spite of its advanced age, this book is still relevant and explains many topics better than much newer books on the various flavors of UNIX. Although there are better books on the specific flavors of UNIX available today, no other book does as good a job of explaining the philosophy of generic UNIX and its intrinsic relationship to the C programming language. The book starts out talking about invoking common commands from the command line, the UNIX file system, and then moves on to "filtering"- which in this context means feeding the output of one command into the input of another command until you obtain the output you desire. Next shell programming is introduced along with sed and awk, which are the oldest of the UNIX scripting languages. Finally, we exhaust what can be done with sed, awk, and scripts consisting of UNIX commands already in existence. So, the authors show us how to "roll our own" UNIX commands by writing C programs and invoking their executable versions just like a UNIX command would be invoked. This part of the book is not meant to be a tutorial on the C programming language, so the reader should already know C or have another source for learning it. As an addendum to the section on C programming and UNIX, the authors illustrate how to use the UNIX system calls to build a richer set of commands. These system calls are interfaces to the UNIX OS kernel and provide a means for the programmer/user to access I/O, create and access files and directories, process errors, manage and create processes, and handle signals - which are the UNIX version of interrupts and exceptions. The book closes with a discussion of yacc and lex and illustrates how they can be used to build a calculator for use in the UNIX environment.
   This is a very "hands on" kind of book, so you should have access to a UNIX based system that has a C compiler handy so that you can type in the commands and do the exercises as you read along in the book. If you are a beginner to the world of UNIX, regardless of the flavor that you are ultimately interested in using, this is a great book to get your feet wet and to understand the power of this operating system.



4. With the growth of MacOS X and programmers looking how to take better advantage of the UNIX/Darwin/Mach underpinnings of the system, there is a great need for something to educate programmers on the basics of how to best take advantage of this environment. This book, affectionately known as K&P by some of us "old timers," continues to relevant, even after more than 20 years since its first publication.
   
   Sure, there are more "up to date" books, but K&P's treatment of the basics are the best. The book is full of discussions on best practices and uses for common commands that are still in use today. They show how to build the constructs to make shell scripts fly, even on today's faster hardware.
   
   The treatment of C programming under UNIX is classic. If you did not learn C by reading "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie (K&R), then the chapter on building a calculator with lex and yacc will be a difficult read. But other than that, this book is a must-have for anyone learning to program under UNIX!



5. If are Unix or Linux geek, this book is for you...as a refernce book, specially for novice....ed

5 comments about Pro Apache, Third Edition (Expert's Voice).

1. Why a third edition? Wainright's first edition was well received and Apache was improved after the edition was published. So he produced a second edition. Guess what? The open source Apache has continued to accrue infalling upgrades. As Wainright explains, there are now two main versions, 1.3 and 2. Apache 1.3 is essentially the direct descendent of earlier versions. Very stable on unix/linux, on which it was originally developed.

   But the key thing about this new book is its descriptions of Apache 2. Apache 1.3 had inferior performance on Microsoft computers, when it was ported. Some people got fed up with this state of affairs and recast crucial portions, to produce Apache 2, which now directly uses native MS threads. It has much better performance than 1.3, on MS computers.

   The book goes into this in fuller detail. Plus it has the usual voluminous descriptions of what you can tweak for most web server needs. Luckily, if you want to deploy or use a vanilla configuration, the early chapters should suffice. Then consult the later text for more specialised needs.

   If you are already running Apache 1.3 on a unix/linux computer, it seems from this book that there is little incentive to migrate to 2. Relatively little to gain.




2. In this voluminous title author Peter Wainwright covers the Apache web server in detail. Chapters include Installing Apache and basic configuration, building Apache the way you want it, configuring Apache the way you want it, deciding what the client needs, delivering dynamic content, hosting more than one web site, improving Apache's performance, monitoring Apache, Securing Apache, Improving Web Server Security, and Extending Apache. It has some excellent sections on advanced configuration, handling robots, dealing with errors and handling them correctly, name-based and IP-based virtual servers, and improving the performance of your server. The section on securing Apache covers authentication (including digest and LDAP) and using SSL (including some advanced configuration techniques).
   
   There are better books that deal with some of the specific areas of this text (for example, Hardening Apache is much more thorough on the subject of securing your server) but you won't find a more comprehensive text in a single volume than this one. Pro Apache, Third Edition is highly recommended and my first choice for anyone looking for a single book to learn how to setup and configure an Apache server or serve as their primary reference.



3. The book is very well written it has helped to go through with the apache server i will recomended it to manyone who is interested in these kind of books. Very explicitly described the content of the book.An excellent purchase



4. This is by far the best standalone book on Apache I've seen. It really is a very good reference for professional web server admins, as well as developers and others, who need help in managing Apache web servers. It's well-written too, something that is becoming increasingly rare in the technical book area.



5. This book contains some meaningful information but is largely obsolete.
   
   Some fairly informative chapters contain introduction to common configuration, authentication, configuring SSL, using WebDAV and subversion.
   
   But lot of space in the book is wasted on topics that were cool in the last century like compiling apache and compiling single modules, but not relevant anymore. Today you are likely not going to recompile you server every week, but you SHOULD install security patches every week, if you take your job seriously. IMHO there is only one possibility - to rely on the services of your linux distribution.
   
   By the way, Debian and derived distributions also do a great job combating the mess in the httpd.conf by meaningfully dividing it in multiple configuration files, so you have a good place to put your specific settings making an automated upgrade to the newer apache version easy. So do not listen to the author, never edit your httpd.conf. ;-)
   
   The author describes in detail topics, that are not relevant anymore in the web application development (assumed that you are creating an application, that goes besides "hello world"). Delivering dynamic content (chapter 6) used to be server-side includes and cgi but it is NOT anymore because of poor programming model and poor performance.
   
   Typical scenario nowadays is to use apache as a front end web server, letting apache serve the static content like pictures and providing a wrapper or proxy to a high performance application server (for example mongrel if you using rails) or using mod_python for python or using zope etc. In this context I would wish elaborative description on mod_rewrite, that is pretty complicated.
   
   My conclusion: if you are beginner, search for a better introductory book. If you are advanced developer/admin/hacker, then use primary resources like [....]

5 comments about The Art of Software Security Assessment: Identifying and Preventing Software Vulnerabilities.

1. The authors of this book are some of the most respected in vulnerability research and theory, and have found many bugs that were years ahead of their time. As expected, they deliver on their prior reputation in this great and incredibly expansive book of knowledge and insight.
   
   If you're tired of reading high-level theoretical books about "building security in" written by people who have no clue what a bug is or how to prevent them, this book is the ideal alternative.
   
   For a hobbyist, it will guide you through practical methodologies about how bug hunting is done and teach you to think like a great vulnerability researcher.
   
   For a developer, it will open your eyes to security oversights in most of the pieces of code you have ever written. Read hard, these bug classes affect the products you are shipping today.
   
   For the security professional, this likely goes not only broader but deeper on lots of issues than you have ever looked, and far beyond any book I've seen. It can be used as page to page read, or a great reference. I personally use it all the time, and have definitely learnt from it. Great job guys!
   
   P.S. Try and spot the 0day.



2. This book is The Bible for anyone in the security vulnerability research or security software engineering field. I haven't bought a book and studied it so much before ever. This is one book that will never be off my desk.



3. This is a very comprehensive, and well-organized security assessment book for Software engineers. Yes, it has everything - all done well. If you are into security assessment and testing and live by it every day, you are still bound to learn a lot, to re-evaluate the things you know, and to genuinely improve your results. If you are a software engineer, it *will* help you build superior applications. If you are just an security enthusiast, you will genuinely enjoy the time spent with this book, and you will find this brick handy more often than previously imagined.



4. A must have. Being a security researcher for almost ten years now, and already a CISSP holder, there are times you believe you have seen most of the things, and you know the best of them. This book opens a new way of thinking, it's detailed and accurate and goes in depth on every subject.
   
   A real must have.
   
   Nicolas Krassas, CISSP



5. This book is absolutely amazing. The amount of detail they go into for so many subjects -- it's incredible. I particularly enjoyed the section on network protocols. I recommend this to any software engineer -- not just those in security specific positions.
   
   Great job, and I hope to enjoy more material from these wonderful authors!