5 comments about Groovy in Action.

1. Learn a new language every year - as someone once said.
   I happened across Groovy a couple of months ago and was looking for some printed resource - navigating a website just isn't the same as holding a book in ones hands.
   And, yes, this is a book well written and easy to read, providing all you need to gain a good understanding of the Groovy language and libraries. If you are looking for a good way to get aquainted with an excellent complement to the Java platform, go and get this book.



2. This book is fantastic. Very well done, easy read. It was the first tech book that I read cover-to-cover -without getting bored- in a long time. The author does a good job of explaining how Groovy works under the covers and does a great job of detailing how to make effective use of it.
   
   The language itself is also impressive and I hope Groovy gets the attention it deserves. I hope all Java developers read this to see what they're missing in Java-land. :-)
   
   Hindsight is 20/20, I'm sure the authors are sorry they included the last chapter on Grails as they did. But I don't fault them, as I'm sure the publisher was not uninvolved in that decision... ;-)
   
   I'm giving it 5 stars anyway. Good work!



3. While getting a little long in the tooth (GINA was released pre-Groovy 1.0, Groovy is now above 1.5), the material presented in the book is still very relevant and helpful. The biggest issue is that some of the newer (and cooler!) features, such as ExpandoMetaClass, of the language are not covered.
   
   That being said, this is still a great introduction to the a language that will likely become an important player in Java shops as developers migrate existing designs to take advantage of the power the dynamic programming provides. The authors do a great job of explaining the concepts and syntax of the language, making it easy to quickly begin writing code of your own.
   
   While books such as Groovy Recipes: Greasing the Wheels of Java are now available that cover the newest features in Groovy, a perusal of GINA can help to flatten the learning curve.



4. This book is totally awesome. The book makes it very easy to jump around and come back to previous chapters. The book's online forum is great too. The author(s) respond very quickly. It is well worth the money. Order it now and you will be programming in Groovy very quickly.



5. For those of you who haven't heard of Groovy, Groovy is a scripting language that is built on top of Java. Since it is written on top of Java, a Java developer can pick up pick Groovy in a snap.
   
   I first heard about Groovy In Action (also known as GINA) during a Groovy presentation almost a year ago, the presenter was referring to Groovy In Action as one of the best references out at the time, After reading GINA, I was not disappointed. The roadmap given at the beginning of the book is a great guide to see how the book is organized out. As an added bonus, the book includes some great reference information at the end of the book. It contains Groovy Language information, a GDK API quick reference, and several great cheat sheets for items such as closures, lists, etc.
   
   The book is full of great examples that you can use (some of the examples illustrate some of the finer points of the language).
   
   In fact someone recently asked about where to find a complete specification of the Groovy Language. Guillaume Laforge, Groovy Program Manager and co-author of Groovy In Action, responded that the most current information can be found in Groovy In Action (source user@groovy.codehaus.org mailing list 3/16/2008).
   
   Groovy in Action is one of the Groovy books that is a must have for anyone looking to get into Groovy Development.

5 comments about Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional (Beginning from Novice to Professional).

1. This is a book about GNU Image Manipulation Program, an open source replacement for the expensive Photoshop software. I played with GIMP for a couple of years with some on-line tutorials. I didn't get very far and I was frustrated. With "Beginning Gimp, From Novice to Professional", I'm finding that the power of the software is amazing. It's also not hard to learn. Really! Now I'm doing great work and spending very little time getting it done. If you have done some photo editing, you know that getting great results quickly is a big deal.
   
   The on-line instructions are out of date so forget it. Whether you are creating art with dazzling special effects, touching up vacation photos, adding text, making fliers and advertising copy, or all of the above, read this book. This is obviously a big endorsement of GIMP software too. [...]



2. This book is a must-have for anyone using GIMP for more than cropping and removing red-eye.
   
   I've been using GIMP for about 3 months. I've been figuring out how to do different actions by trial and error, through web searches, and by reading PhotoShop books and tutorials. I tired of experimenting to understand the details of tools, and bought this book. It is OUTSTANDING. It contains clear explanations of many GIMP functions, and gives details and examples about the settings that control each one. I find the author's instructions very clearly written, well organized and complete.
   
   Ms. Peck's technical skills and knowledge are reflected in her writing - she knows software development and software use, and communicates it well.
   
   So far this book has greatly improved my use of many GIMP features and tools including: Layers, Clone, Selection tools, Selection Editing, Quick Mask, brushes, and paths, to name just a few.
   
   My only criticism is that I have had a few advanced questions that are not covered, but this has been very rare. I'd welcome this book being twice as long - and I'd buy that new edition in a heartbeat. But until this outstanding author writes that book, the current edition is a great resource for learning and using GIMP.



3. I used this book for a class, it was good but vague at times. I had to look up some tutorials online to help me out.



4. This book is an invaluable tool in learning to use the image manipulation software "Gimp". I would like to see tool use exercises/lessons in the early part of the book. I needed a CD with the book, when I had no Internet access...
   
   I am using a 64-bit version of Mepis 7 a easy desktop Linux operating system, and found this book invaluable while I continue to learn. Gimp was one of the graphic software package included with the Linux Distribution I use at home. I have also downloaded Gimp and installed it in the neighbors Windows XP system and find it works the same.
   
   That experience of installing this graphic tool in two different operating systems was different, The ability to move from my Linux system to the neighbors Windows system and have the same tools and functions available with this book was amazing... If you Need to learn this graphic software package, this published book will certainly assist you...
   
   The Healing tool is one I use often and I would like chapter devoted to cone and the heal tools. Clone is touched upon, but with the healing and clone tool, there are things that can be accomplish I could not imagine possible...
   
   In the next revision, also add an expanded easier method for the user to understand, to allow the student to become accomplished using paths. Please include more steps and exercises for the users to cope with this vast feature...
   
   I am using Gimp 2.4.5 and looking forward to version 3 of Gimp and will be lined up to purchase the new book.
   
   MT



5. Akkana Peck has provided a needed tutorial to this fascinating open-source image editing program. The GIMP user interface is a bit different and this book helps make sense out of the multiple windows you see. Topics include improving digital photos, selections, layers, drawing, filters, etc. This book not only tells you how to use the GIMP image editing tools, but also tells you what to watch out for. The book is on glossy paper with hundreds of high quality color images, including helpful screen shots. Since the GIMP program is free, you only have to pay for the book. Such a deal!

4 comments about Ajax: The Definitive Guide.

1. §
   There is a LOT of code in this 950 page book. I guess there is something here for everyone because there is code not directly related to Ajax but is directed to HTML structure or CSS presentational aspects or to frameworks that may include Ajax conveniences.
   
   In fact, the amount of code may interfere with the author's object of appealing to two very different types of people with this book: Web developers and project managers looking for a high-level view. Except for some intro chapters and the odd breather between 10-15 page code listings, I don't think any project managers *I* have worked with would extract much from the book.
   
   The book has 4 sections:
   Part 1 - Ajax Fundamentals: the basic technologies that could form the core of a typical Ajax application.
   
   Part 2 - Ajax Foundations: approaches to standards-compliant structure, separation of the presentational layer and client-side behaviors. Code code code!
   
   Part 3 - Ajax in Applications: describes the specific implementations of these technologies into Web applications. More code!
   
   Part 4 - Wrapping Up: tips on optimization.
   
   In addition, there are some reference appendices on XML and XSLT; on JavaScript frameworks; on Ajax implementation risks; and most interestingly, a catalog of freely available Web service APIs.
   
   One thing I did not like about the code listings was the use of Prototype style $() function syntax. This means when I see something like:
   var titleText = $('title').firstChild;
   I had to check whether .firstChild was a reference to a Prototype object or a reference to the standard DOM object. If the standard object, it would have been a whole lot clear just to have written document.getElementById().
   
   The book index is actually pretty good. With 950 pages stuffed with content, you will probably be thankful for that!
   §



2. 'Ajax: The Definitive Guide' certainly is definitive. With 950+ pages of content, this book doesn't know the word brevity. Spanning 23 chapters and 4 appendixes, this book covers everything you would want to know about AJAX. From its history to how it's grown to where things are today and in the future, this text is very complete. If you are new to AJAX and want to learn how to use it in an extensive way, this is a great resource. My only qualm with this book is that I feel it is just TOO big in size. A 'Learning AJAX' book at around 200-300 pages would be a great companion book to have on the side, then switching over to this bible-size book would be a good transition. Overall this is written well, laid out in detail, and typical O'Reilly quality.
   
   ***** RECOMMENDED



3. My previous favorite, and most recommended, book on AJAX was the one by Crane et. al. because of it's completeness in covering the subject by taking a big picture view of Web 2.0 rather than just one technology. For developers though, the book by Holdener is probably the one to own.
   
   This book has some excellent information that seems to escape other books on this subject or is found across multiple titles. So even though it is certainly a large volume, I think there is some definite value in having quite a bit of related material in one title. For example, there are insights into JavaScript and use of JSON in programming the DOM (to name a few) that in my opinion made sense to include.
   
   If you are going to do rich, browser-based application work, you definitely want to consider this book.



4. While "Ajax: The Definitive Guide" is certainly exhaustive, it's hard to have confidence in a text so riddled with errors. Other O'Reilly titles I've purchased in the last few years suffer from the same problem: very poor copy editing. In a "Definitive Guide," this is inexcusable.
   
   Furthermore, he author's decision to rely on the Prototype framework is misguided. It saves a few lines of code per page, but one expects a "Definitive Guide" to define, explore, and use the actual objects and methods defined by the language itself, not those defined in one of many, many external libraries.
   
   It is also somewhat comical to read on page 10 that developers, rather than browser vendors, "are to blame for not adopting standards" and that they are "stuck with the mentality of the 1990s, when browser quirks mode, coding hacks, and other tricks were the only things that allowed code to work in all environments," and then to read on page 191 that "Yes, there are always caveats in the world of standards compliance" and that "Example 7-2 will not work in Internet Explorer because Internet Explorer does not support the CSS2 rules that are used to make this work." And on page 187 that "Internet Explorer does not natively support :hover on elements other than . For this reason, instead of using the CSS that will work for all other browsers, we must use this...."
   
   (It's hard not to laugh, too, at a sentence that begins with "To take the file menu example fully to the Web 2.0 level....")
   
   By the time all the errata are corrected and a second edition issued, it might be appropriate for the author to wag his finger at developers who can't yet afford to to be totally standards-pure, but by then the faddish jargon will seem very dated.
   
   And until O'Reilly starts employing copy editors, I'm not buying the first edition of any title they release.

5 comments about Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering.

1. This is one the few books that goes into details of reverse engineering. A lot of the steps described I went thru myself, not using Ollydbg but with IDA Pro which is the perfect tool for this.



2. This book takes a tutorialistic approach to reverse engineering. It assumes you have a working knowledge of assembly language and C/C++. The author briefly introduces you to some of the programming languages in use, Windows Internals, gives an overview of some of the tools available, and then proceeds to walk you through some example reverse-engineering. The author spent alot of time covering Windows internals. The overview of Assembly language could have been a little more thorough before going into reverse-engineering, instead most of the appendix is devoted to this. More time introducing the debugging tools and the use of it's features instead of the brief overview would have been helpful too. Despite these shortcomings the book is very educational. If you are not up to speed on C/C++ and assembly would recommend reading Assembly Language Step-by-step: Programming with DOS and Linux (with CD-ROM) and The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) before reading this book.



3. This book is a dense collection of information about various aspects of reversing.
   
   There are a few factual errors, and so, while this book can be used for bed-time reading, I wouldn't count on it as a reference.
   
   Before people pounce on me for mentioning 'factual errors' and not substantiating them, let me draw their attention to the description of calling conventions in this book. This book mentions that cdecl and stdcall pass arguments in different orders (i.e left to right for cdecl and right to left for stdcall). This is just plain wrong. I wonder how this important detail could not be caught during editing, and technical review.



4. The book is put together very well and provides adequate explanations on the majority of everything it touches on, but if you've already been reversing for a while and want more in depth knowledge and/or advanced methods for reversing check elsewhere. For the audience it was written for, its great, if your a newbie to reversing it would be a good addition to your library.



5. This book includes a great deal of effective and practical techniques related to the subject. While reading this book it soon becomes very clear that the author is a highly experienced professional in the field. He does a wonderful job presenting the many relevant topics presented in the book. If developers want to discover vulnerabilities in their own applications, this book will give some excellent pointers. Security professionals will very likely draw some great benefits from it as well. This book is loaded with information which is generally easy to read, (more so if you are familiar with some high and low level programming languages), and remains right on topic. This book is definitely a "must read!"

1 comments about MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-646): Windows Server Administration.

1. This book is great, it covers all topics neccesary to pass the Exam 70-646. It also include real life situations that enrich your experience as IT Professional.
   I recomend it.

No comments about The Microsoft® SharePoint® Step by Step Kit: Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007.

5 comments about Dreamweaver CS3 Bible.

1. I ordered this book for it's coverage of the new Spry Ajax features of Dreamweaver CS3. Having used the three previous versions of DW for nearly 10 years, I was not looking for an introduction to DW, but more for an encyclopedic reference to look up and deal with specific situations and coverage of new features. So far I have found the Bible to be very good for these purposes. Subjects are easy to find using the table of contents and index and, once found, topic coverage is clear and full of usage/code examples.
   
   As I said, I am far from being a DW newbie who needs introduction to the basics of the software so I have not spent much time in the introductory chapters of the book. I have, however, loaned the book to a co-worker who is new to the product. She indicated that the Bible author's writing style and liberal use of figures and examples made the content easy to understand and she feels that her DW expertise has been pumped up dramatically by her exposure to this book.
   
   This is a good, well-organized resource both for the experienced developer and the web development novice.



2. I started CS3 using the all-in-one CS3 book for Dummies. It was a very good overview of the entire suite that helped get me going, but it wasn't long before I needed more detail. That's where this Bible comes in. I haven't read it cover-to-cover yet, but the individual sections provide the additional detail to take the frustration out of new tasks. I find this much more useful than the on-line Adobe articles. It would be nicer if the illustrations were in color, but that would also make the book much more expensive, so it's not a bad tradeoff.



3. This book, while daunting in size, is very accessible and contains everything you need to know about Dreamweaver CS3. I'm a designer, comfortable coding CSS/HTML but pretty green when it comes to things like XML and Spry. Other Dreamweaver books I looked at didn't have anything I didn't already know...so I knew they were lacking in a big way. This book takes you through every nook and cranny and when compared to others its astounding how glaring their shortcomings are and much more is in here. While you probably won't lay in bed reading this giant book it is by far the best and only book to consider for Dreamweaver. For me its serving as a springboard to learn other technologies/languages, so I'd have to say you'll learn a lot even beyond Dreamweaver. Covers the subject matter thoroughly and teaches you so much more...they didn't have to bother writing any other Dreamweaver books. This is the one.



4. Just speaking from one who does not build websites for a living. I purchased Dreamweaver to build our own company websites. We have used primarily Frontpage in the past for our basic websites, despite it's obvious limitations. So obviously there is a steep learning curve towards learning Dreamweaver. We are fairly competent with computers, but the biggest problem we have with this book is that it is so wordy. This book is over one thousand pages long, and the first one hundred pages do little more than describe Dreamweaver's features and attributes, without getting into any of the meat of how to actually run the software. Time is a limited commodity for us, and we don't need to wade through a thousand page book to find our answers.
   I would agree that this is an excellent reference book, and I would recomend purchasing it to improve your web design capabilities, once you're already familiar with Dreamweaver. But I would prefer to see the big picture first. That is, I would rather learn the basics first, on how to run Dreamweaver, then learn about all of it's intricacies later.
   So I would recomend this book as the second Dreamweaver book to read, if you are new to Dreamweaver. The first one should be more basic and more to the point.



5. Aside from the obvious, that it has nothing whatsoever to do with THE Bible, it's quite dry and un-informing. I'm unable to get much from the book; other than "history of the web" type stuff. Buy at your own risk.

5 comments about HTML 4 For Dummies, 5th Edition.

1. I found this item to be informative, easy to follow and well worth the price that I paid for it. The book arrived when I expected it.
   I would recommend this book, as a starting point, to anyone who is interested in learning HTML.



2. Caveat emptor to the absolute beginner. This book is not written for the beginning web page creator. It is not written in a tutorial style. It is good as a reference source as you study a true tutorial type book. It discusses tags and their attributes one at a time without showing you how they fit into your web page code. The beginning chapters throw lots of advanced features at you and tell you they will be discussed in chapter 19 etc.
   I was completely overwhelmed after 20 min of reading. So what's a beginner to do? I recommend Create Your First Web Page in a Weekend. By the time you get half way through that book then you can use this dummies book as a reference.
   william



3. As a novice or someone thinking about working with HTML, I think this book was over my head. If one had some background in HTML they could probably make full/better use of its content. Pork Chops and Applesauce: A Collection of Recipes and Reflections



4. This is not a book for jumping into WEB development. It claims to be but it really is not.
   
   It's a good intro book for HTML for the absolute beginner. But, I must mention you have to be a reader versus an examples person. There is a great deal of discussion and only so much code examples. However, it did answer a couple questions.
   
   I found this book good for getting to know what is out there. The book offers useful links to sites for getting more information. This saved time and it offers a "warm fuzzy" since it is suggested versus wandering around the Net.
   
   The book also suggests some tools to use which again saved a little time.
   
   I don't know if I would call this a good reference book. For example, it lightly touches CSS, XHTML and CGI and the design suggestions? Well you probably could get a design book to handle that better as I think they are rather basic in this book.
   
   If you can get it from the library or get it used, it might be worth a look.
   
   If you understand basic HTML, you might avoid it.



5. I'm never disappointed with Dummies books and this one is no exception. Great read, easy to learn.

5 comments about Regular Expression Pocket Reference: Regular Expressions for Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python, C, Java and .NET (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)).

1. This book is the best reference for regular expressions. The second edition came out in July 2007 and has several updates over the previous version. The reason for the books ease-of-use lies in the organization. The chapters represent one language each. For each language, listings of the meta-characters and examples are shown. Depending on the language being displayed, there are other subjects covered such as unicode support, object orientation, and different topics unique to the language. The primary parsing engine is listed at the beggining of the chapters with the examples arranged at the ends of the chapters. I generally need to look up expression for JavaScript and [...]. Both of these are covered plus perl, java, php, python, ruby, pcre, apache, vi and shells. I just bookmark the 2 areas I need and I can lookup the expression listing in a few seconds.



2. "Regular Expression - Pocket Reference" is just as high in quality as it's big brother ("Mastering Regular Expressions.")
   
   The book begins with a very brief review of regular expression concepts and patterns. For each language/tool, the book includes tables to reference the metacharacters, a reference for the API/syntax/library and four examples. A few of the languages have additional examples tailored specifically to that language.
   
   The languages/tools included are: Perl, Java, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, PCRE, Apache Web Server, vi and awk/sed/egrep. If you use a number of these, the book is a concise reference. If you only use one, you would be better served by printing out the relevant reference charts from the website of your language of choice.
   
   If you are learning about regular expressions or only going to buy one regular expressions book, I recommend the "Mastering Regular Expressions." If you are knowledgeable about regular expressions and just need a review or reference, this book does the job nicely.



3. From the back cover of the Regular Expression Pocket Reference: "Ideal as a quick reference..." and "... makes an ideal on-the-job companion." All this is true if you are well-versed in regular expressions and use multiple programming languages (and confuse the syntax).
   
   I like the use of the same examples across programming languages (where applicable).
   
   The recipes in the cookbook section are great, although I would have liked to see additional recipes (like stripping HTML tags, matching credit card numbers etc...). Of course the examples are endless and over time one builds his/her own recipe collection. At least this is a good place to start.



4. Pocket references are not meant to teach you anything from the beginning, but to be everyday references in known and new environments. In other words, if you don't know regular expressions, then go to "Mastering Regular Expressions". If you're still here, then you'll get a cheat sheet on steroids for languages ranging from bug-prone JavaScript to the King and Queen of robustness, Perl and Python. Although everything claims to be PCRE these days, particular examples in every language available is a plus for anyone. A must for any type of user input validation.



5. You know those times when you know what you want to do, but are not sure of the correct form, this is the book to grab. It has been my book to grab as a reference rather than trying to find the right language book. This is not the book to learn the language from, however. You will find your copy will be well worn if you do lots of coding.

4 comments about Data Manipulation with R (Use R).

1. This book along with Jim Albert's should be read by every statistician that does a lot of statistical computing. Both books help you learn R quickly and apply it to many important problems in research both applied and theoretical. Albert emphasizes applications in Bayesian statistics whereas Spector is teaching how to do data manipulation, things like merging and transposing data sets. These techniques can be easy to do in a language like SAS after a little training but in other programming languages it can be very difficult.



2. This concise 150 page book contains a wealth of information, writen clearly and with many well-chosen examples. I liked it a lot. It covers reading and writing data in/out of the R workspace, including access to databases. The names of other chapters suggest the topics covered: "Dates", "Factors", "Subscripting", "Character manipulation", "Data aggregation", "Reshaping data".
   
   This book will be helpful to any but the most absolutely new to R, and even the seasoned user will find interesting hints and examples. I cannot recommend it enough.
   
   One minor qualm I have is the absence of references. Some topics (for instance, regular expressions) are fairly complex, and well documented elsewhere: a pointer or two would be helpful. Same with, for instance, SQL, which is mentioned and demonstrated briefly.
   
   Another not-so-minor qualm is price. A book of this size from, for instance, Dover classics collection, with similar paper quality and covers, is about a third or fourth of the price. Although this is a new book I find the $54.95 tag (Amazon discounted price is about $44.50) fairly high. But this has nothing to do with the quality of the book, rather it has to do with the Springer pricing policies.
   
   All in all, if you don't mind the price, this is a good buy.



3. The title of the book implied a lot and the book did not deliver. If the book had twice as many pages it would have come close to the title's promise because the author would have had enough space to cover the broad area of manipulation of data in R. I felt as if the author was forced to discuss a topic in as little space as possible. Some the discussions where cursory at best. There was just enough information to leave you wandering what could have been said to give the reader a more in depth understanding of the topic.
   
   I think the author knows this material "like the back of his hand", but, he forgot that the readers do not.



4. Data manipulation can often take as long as or longer than the actual analysis. The ability to manipulate data is not emphasized enough. This book gives a great introduction to this skill set. It is clearly written and provides good examples.