X Books

He's got an amazing grasp of the subject and very easy, organized way to present it. I'm enjoying learning what could otherwise be a very dry subject.

I bought this book along with Mac OS X Server Essentials. While that book is good on the GUI interface, this book shows in good detail what is really going on under the hood and behind the scenes. I have a much better understanding of Open Directory and LDAP in general as well as Kerberos and Single Sign in logic. Many of the other services offered under OS X Server 10.4 are also explained well. The command line information is good while not being so in depth as to lose the reader. You should have a basic familiarity with UNIX command line before trying to understand the concepts presented. The section on security is very good and presents a broad range of options to the administrator.

This book is a one-to-one version of the course material found in the Directory Services Integration and Administration v10.4 course, the Security Best Practices v10.4 course and more. The exercises are well thought out and easy to do. Not so easy to remember are the 800+ pages, but it is not meant to teach you all you need to know about being an SysAdmin. It is enough to get you through these two exams, which give you 7 credits and the ACSA. And it is enough to set you off into a job as Junior SysAdmin or, as in my case, a supporter with server duties.

Ideally, one should visit both official courses - not so much because more is offered in the actual courses than in the book, but rather because one can ask pointed questions of the teacher, that one cannot ask if something in the book is not clear.

As in most such books, it represents a beginning - the rest is a matter of acquiring experience. Do not expect this book to give you all the answers. I doubt if that would be possible. But it will give a whole lot of things to look out for and a whole lot of new input, especially if you have been doing some SysAdmin-ing and now want a look-see as to how the fulltime SysAdmins do it.

I read this book from cover to cover in order to prepare for two of the ACSA certification exams Apple offers, including the Directory Services Integration and Administration and Best Security Practices exams. If one is interested in the topics then one can learn an amazing amount of details and facts, otherwise difficult to come by in such an easily readable style.

However, I should warn, the book is not perfect in that the quality of the exposition can vary greatly from chapter to chapter. If I recall correctly, one of the first chapters explaining the basics of the KDC service and the concepts of Realms and principals contained grammatical errors so severe that they compromised the validity of the topic. Furthermore, some very interesting topics, such as cross realm authentication are barely touched upon.
Also, the information herein will not really help one troubleshoot a problematic service/server, but it will give you the background information, provided you are actively absorbing the information, which will allow you to analyze and think through troubleshooting scenarios.

However, any of these pitfalls are made up through such step by step explanations of the background processes behind promoting a server to an OD master, for example. I wish more OS books would cover such information either in this way or even at all.

Regardless, the book definitely did an amazing job of preparing me for the exams. I received very high scores on both exams (a 96 on the Directory Services and an 88 on the Security exam) and learned numerous interesting facts in every chapter.

At last, I would surely recommend this book for anyone thinking of getting an ACSA or someone just curious about the Unix side, along with its many possibilities, of OS X.[.....]

As another review states, this book is the guide for the relevant Apple ACSA courses. It succinctly provides you with an understanding of the basic information needed to attack the certification exams.

I do also recommend that you find the time and funds to actually take the classes. The folks in Cupertino have put a lot of work into creating great courses that offer you the crucial opportunity to learn by doing. The content and examples you work through during the courses are relevant to a wide range of applications, from small business to multi-national corporation as well as K-12, higher education, and research.

Schoun himself is one of the top independent providers of Apple training and has had no small hand in the development of the courses. I've had the pleasure of taking classes from him on several occasions and recommend his work highly.

THE BOOK DESIGN AND CLASSY JACKET ALONE ARE WORTH THE MONEY. LOVED THE MOVIE. THE ONLY PROBLEM THAT I HAVE IS THAT THEY DON'T PUT ENOUGH COHERENT STORYBOARDS INTO THE CONTENT. ALSO, THE NIGHTCRAWLER'S MOCK-UP CIRCUS POSTER DON'T REALLY GIVE ANY ADDITIONAL VALUE OVER THE BOOK'S GENERAL CONTENT.

My first impression was WOW! This book captures the essence of the movie. It's great to see the story boards it just makes you remember every scene of this excellent movie. It's obvious all the crew involved in X2 cared a lot about details and art and this book crowns it. The addition of the movie script is great, i think we fans love to read the original script to see what scenes didnt make it to the final and wonder what they looked like (if they add them in the DVD it would be fantastic). The quality of this book is absolutely great. Beautiful pictures in every page you turn. A must to every X2 fan.

Being new to the world of the X-men, this book has everything to offer for the die hard fan. The Beautiful black hardcover (not to mention its wonderful slipcover with the entire cast on front) is amazing! The book is filled with illistrations, costume drawings, stroyboards, idea drawings of the proposed danger room, characther bios, and the best part...the complete movie script of X2! Well worth buying. I would suggest any fan to buy to add to his/her collection.

An astounding companion to the film, this book should be on every X-fan's wish list, and probably on that of anyone interested in how a real two-hour block of entertainment is made. There is real heart in this film--it stands out from most summer blockbusters as a simple, non-preachy statement on tolerance, gorgeously wrapped up in the craftsmanship of thousands of film artists, performers, computer graphic artists, and editors. It's a work of art, a rollicking ride, and this book is a terrific tide-me-over for anyone yearning to own the film on DVD in the future.

If you are looking for concept art, production stills and behind the scenes photography, this is the book.

The book goes in chronological order, for the most part, and shows the concept drawings and paintings, the storyboard sketches (and text), and places them next to finished photography of the sets and characters, which gives you a great idea of how the concepts are turned into reality.

It takes you into character development for all of the major characters, with concept art to final film stills. The characters covered are: Nightcrawler (with a great full page poster of "the amazing nightcrawler"), Charles Xavier, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Rogue, Storm, Pyro, Magneto, Mystique, Mutant 143, and Lady Deathstrike. Most characters have only 2 pages each, but Nightcrawler, Mystique, Wolverine, Mutant 143, and Lady Deathstrike have multiple pages which show sketches and final photography.

The locations/sets covered in the book are: the White House, X-Mansion, Cerebro, Plastic Prison, X-Jet, Alkali Lake, and Stryker's Base.

This book is 100% filled with great content: drawings, photos, and storyboards, along with a section on the special effects. I wish it were twice as big, but everything in the book is awesome.

I love this book. The origin of X-23 is a much better story than I was expecting - better than Target X. There were several plot twists that I didn't see coming, and the death of Sue, X-23's "mother" at the end is one of the more poignant moments in comics. As for NYX, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but as a teenage mutants on the loose in Alphabet City discovering their powers, I found the Runaways-esque feel of the book to be right up my alley. The main character is a great blend of street smarts and just plain cuteness. Some very adult themes in both stories. I loved every page and will definitely read it again.

...Would be soo good. I mean, Wow! that was a pretty stupid idea to make a Wolverine's daughter. But ut actually came out great! don't believe it? Just try it out!

A must for every X-Men fan.

To me, this is an X-Men-ized & far darker version of `GunslingerGirl.' (which is already quite dark) of the age-old question, `Who is really the monster?' & the reverse of an age-old question, `At what point does a man become a machine?'

I've never been one for super heroes; nothing against them, they simply aren't my genre of interest. However the X-Men have always been an exception for me, with their captivating villains, back stories, & genuinely complex social explorations. & with its thick science-fiction atmosphere & heavy, suffocating subtext, I can sincerely claim that X-23: Innocence Lost is a must read for all X-Men fans, maybe even for all comic book fans in general.

Dr Sarah Kinney has been called to a science institute to assist with the assembly of a new `weapon X', a clone of the escapee human-engineered super mutant `Wolverine'. But Sarah's been numb for a long time now, emotionally detached from humanity, & doesn't realize it until too late--she is creating a child, not a weapon.
The story's backbone is of parental love & loss of freedom; with perhaps the most monstrous villain I have ever seen for the fact that we watch him grow from an envious & arrogant doctor into something not human who doesn't even realize how truly evil he has become, & even more chilling is that he is not an over-the-top villain but someone who you could actually & unfortunately meet; & is aided by a grimly black climax & surprisingly upsetting ending.
There is a potent emotional & disturbing power behind this work & it haunts you long after closing its covers.
Despite some flaws in the art, the bizarre yet vivid color palate somehow intensifies the cold, lonely feeling of isolation, & the characters are given soul-filled eyes that pierce.

So what is the answer to this question...?

4.5 stars rounded up.

I would also recommend the rare-to-find series 'NYX: Wannabe', the first 2 exhilarating volumes of `New X-Men: childhood's end', as well as 'X-23: Target X' by the same authors, though all pale in comparison to this inspired gem.

What a story. Ugly & brutal and yet heart-wrenching. This is truly an extraordinary graphic novel. If I had one complaint, it would be that the artwork definitely follows the anime tradition, and I personally prefer more a realistic style.

First of all, I am new to the X-Men, so I can't very well judge what the seasoned fanatics will think of this. After all, the X-Men themselves don't even appear- except for a flashback showing Wolverine.

But make no mistake- this story is brilliant.

Here's what you should note:

1.) The drama is very real here. It is a highly emotional plot that works so well that it would probably make a darn good movie.

2.) There is plenty of action, all of which is wonderfully illustrated- and note that there is more than a little bloodshed.

I hope this is enough to help you make a judgement. But please, even if you don't read it now, read it SOON. The story is absolutely engrossing and I believe that the character X-23/Laura has the potential to become exceptionally popular among fans.

This book is indeed a "Cookbook"; nice examples on how to do lots of stuff. It is nicely categorized and the explanations/discussions are easy to follow. The authors seem to have lots of experience, and are honest enough to even explain when NOT to use bash; when for example perl would do better.

Highly recommended if you want to get stuff done using bash.

Currently this is the only book that specifically covers bash 3.2, the version that contain new and interesting features like =~ operator for "normal" regular expression matching.

The main advantage of the book that it really covers a lot of ground and provides system administrators and users with a lot of good and difficult to find tips about customizing of the environment and making yourself more productive.

Chapters 5-6 which provide good overview of new features introduced in version 3.x including "normal" regular expressions pattern matching ( operator =~) and C-style for loop. One problem with shells traditionally use two completely obsolete notations for regular expressions (basic regular expression often known as DOS-style regular expressions plus quite perverse prefix notation ). Bash 3.2 did not fixes this problem as this is a problem of Unix in general (Unix can be called an Os that uses a dozen of different definitions of regular expressions :-) that but at least added a normal regular expression notion to the list.

After chapters 5 and 6 I recommend reading chapters 9, 17 and 19 and then the rest. While chapters are of very uneven quality, usually you can find at least one useful tip in each.

The spectrum of bash related tips and useful mini-scripts is quote substantial. The authors cover classic things like customizing prompt quite well. The book is not only about bash it covers a lot of ground including use of classic Unix utilities in scripting (most notably grep, find, sort, and date) along with related topics such as use of pipes and I/O redirection.

Of course for such a complex topic there are some shortcomings. It's a pretty difficult task to write a good cookbook but authors did an excellent job and provided many very valuable tips that can help to improve both system administrators and power users productivity.

One of the problems for a cookbook is a good organization and specifically a good starting chapter and here authors failed. Some chapters are half-baked. The Chapter about version control is badly written and very superficial. The authors just mention a couple of system without any details. And in this topic the devil is in details.

Some bash features are explained superficially. For example bash has horrible implementation of pushd/popd/dirs troika and it not that easy to use them productively. One notable deficiency is that there is no way to suppress duplicates which in essence make this feature almost unusable. The authors treatment looks like a baseless advertizing of a poorly implemented feature.

But I hope that the authors will improve the book in the next edition and I am reluctant to downgrade the book based on those flaws. After all, this is a cookbook and it should be judged by the best recipes not the worst.

Linux system admin is something I do as part of my job. I've been able to acquire the basics and get the job done, but I knew that there were better ways to get the job done. Nothing like having an expert to help learn the ins and outs.

This book allowed me to take it to the next level. There are many excellent examples on how to get it done, as well as advice on things that should not be done.

There is a good mix of newbie info as well as useful tips for the seasoned veteran. There's usually more than one way to get the job done, and this book showed me some new, better ways to accomplish the task at hand.

If you're working with bash, you'll find something useful in this book.

This book covers the GNU Bourne Again Shell, which is a member of the Bourne family of shells that includes the original Bourne shell sh, the Korn shell ksh, and the Public Domain Korn Shell pdksh. This book is for anyone who uses a Unix or Linux system, as well as system administrators who may use several systems on any given day. Thus, there are solutions and useful sections for all levels of users including newcomers. This book is full of recipes for creating scripts and interacting with the shell that will allow you to greatly increase your productivity.

Chapter 1, "Beginning bash" covers what a shell is, why you should care about it, and then the basics of bash including how you get it on your system. The next five chapters are on the basics that you would need when working with any shell - standard I/O, command execution, shell variables, and shell logic and arithmetic. Next there are two chapters on "Intermediate Shell Tools". These chapters' recipes use some utilities that are not part of the shell, but which are so useful that it is hard to imagine using the shell without them, such as "sort" and "grep", for example. Chapter nine features recipes that allow you to find files by case, date, type, size, etc. Chapter 10, "Additional Features for Scripting" has much to do with code reuse, which is something you find even in scripting. Chapter 11, "Working with Dates and Times", seems like it would be very simple, but it's not. This chapter helps you get through the complexities of dealing with different formats for displaying the time and date and converting between various date formats.

Chapter 12, "End-User Tasks As Shell Scripts", shows you a few larger though not large examples of scripts. They are meant to give you useful, real world examples of actual uses of shell scripts beyond just system administration tasks. Chapter 13, "Parsing and Similar Tasks", is about tasks that will be familiar to programmers. It's not necessarily full of more advanced scripts than the other recipes in the book, but if you are not a programmer, these tasks might seem obscure or irrelevant to your use of bash. Topics covered include parsing HTML, setting up a database with MySQL, and both trimming and compressing whitespace. Chapter 14 is on dealing with the security of your shell scripts. Chapters 15 through 19 finish up the book starting with a chapter on advanced scripting that focuses on script portability. Chapter 16 is related to the previous chapter on portability and is concerned with configuring and customizing your bash environment. Chapter 17 is about miscellaneous items that didn't fit well into any other chapter. The subjects include capturing file metadata for recovery, sharing and logging sessions, and unzipping many ZIP files at once. Chapter 18 deals with shortcuts aimed at the limiting factor of many uses of bash - the typing speed of the user and shortcuts that cut down on the amount of typing necessary. The final chapter in the book, "Tips and Traps", deals with the common mistakes that bash users make.

All in all this is a very handy reference for a vast number of the tasks that you'll come across when scripting with the bash shell along with well-commented code. Highly recommended.

These O'Reilly Cookbooks should be on every sysadmin's shelf. The Bash Cookbook is no different. Incredibly useful book. I didn't read it cover to cover but have gone back to it at least 15-20 times to pull out nuggets of info. The real-world, practical examples and solutions offered in this book provide the sysadmin with a virtual swiss army knife when working with bash.

Book was so useful, I bought two extra copies and sent them to coworkers.

Once again Charlotte saves my behind by keeping my kids busy through a chaotic weekend. With the latest book, we are actually stopping the kids from reading to go outside and play !

What's more is that Charlotte, the author actually emailed the kids !!!! Having been huge fans of Charlottes for years now, my kids went crazy when an email arrived from Sonic's Author. Charlotte thank you so much for paying attention to my kids -- The Best of Luck to You !!!!!

Sonic and Chris and the gang are on a super snowy planet, searching for another Chaos Emerald. Standing inn their way are the hilariously evil Dr. Eggman and his inept robot henchmen, Rouge, and the usual cast of Metarexes. The puns are marvelously awful ("there's no business like snow business" and "ice to meet you"), and the author really captures the excitment and action of the Sonic Series.

Veramente un bell libro. Lo consiglio a grandi e piccini , ben scritto . Non vedo l'ora che esca la versione Italiana.

I laughed. I cried. And then I laughed some more and peed a little. It was a movie that came to life right in front of me!

much better than that ice-laden James Bond movie with the bad theme song...

Bravo!! What a joy to listen to, brought back childhood memories of listening to the old classic-H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds". I hope there is a sequel in the making..

A real must for sci-fi buffs and those who still value the art of listening and using your imagination to conjure up the pictures.


Vijay Parmar, New York

I got this one for my 10 year old son. Reminded me of my childhood - the wonder of alien worlds, the excitement of knowing you're the first to be somewhere or see something. I think I'll have to get him an I-pod next as I'm worried about my Hi-Fi's speakers; they're getting quite a work-out!
Planet X is highly recommended! A really refreshing yet thrilling way to enjoy high quality SF in the 21st century!

This is a rare treat from a promising up-and-coming scifi author. The quality of the audio effects is simply amazing and the story line compelling. I listened to it on a long train journey and got completely lost in the alien world. Would definately recommend to anybody with any interest in science fiction.

SF fans will enjoy Alien at Planet X, especially those who have a liking for gloopy-to-spacy ambient/electronic music ala ORB, Future Sound of London and Space Time Continuum.

The plot takes time to unfold (much like a typical Clifford D. Simak novel) but listeners are warned that the tempo increases dramatically in the second half as the rescue party finds itself in a number of precarious situations which are not always successfully negotiated.

The star of the story is undoubtedly the soundtrack which is effectively integrated into the plot and dialogue. Ever heard an interstellar spaceship journey? Well you should, and here is your chance...

Defintely worth checking out.

WT London

As a neuron-activating antidote to the numbing quality
of Telly, 'The Alien at Planet X' comes to you unreservedly
recommended.  Albeit redolent of the classic 50's style,
with a twist by way of the 70's, a la Indiana Jones, it
is a wholly original action adventure/romp.

The integration of a gripping and intelligent Science
Fiction plot, with intriguing electronic music, renders
it a reincarnation of 'Old Time Radio' in an entirely
modern and engaging format.

If a comparison must be made for this impressively
inventive 'audeo', it'd be safe to describe it as more
akin to Star Wars than Star Trek.  Computer and Bio-warfare
reign and the excitement of exploration for two space
travellers easefully stimulates that largely unused area of
the imagination.  Do yourself a favour and enjoy the endorphin
fix: this is aerobics for the cerebellum!


Juanita O.Kelly
Aspen, Colorado.

I cant seem to put it down. when i do, i switch the lights back on and read more. it's pact with action and energy. the xmen after a mission on another earth returned to find out no one remembers them even their friends. their mansion became a death camp, Doom was the emperor of everyone and ororo is his empress. read the book, its more than worth reading.

This Book was great. I recomended it to any X-Men fan. It has alot of action and a good story. My only warning is once you start this book you won't be able to put it down!!

This book ruled!. The only part that suprised me greater than Gambit's death was the ending. Get this book if you like Dr. Doom

This is an awesome book. Once you finish the first chapter, you just want to read more. Once you read the first page, you become captivated to read the book. The first page is totally awesome.

THis is truly a must buy for any x-fan out there. Just buy this book!

In many ways my husband and I miss the 80's. We liked the music, the fashion and the way people were concerned with simple things like hygiene and attractive clothing. This book took us back to those happy carefree teenage years when things were good and we were nearly completely free of responsibility!! As we went through this book we had many good laughs and had fun remembering things long forgotten! I recommend this book if you liked the 80's and I recommend reading it with at least one other person who enjoyed that era! Fun book!

This book was as much fun as a barrel of smurfs...required reading for those of us with a Dukes of Hazard lunch box and a Battlestar Galactica sleeping bag in the closet...awaken the Chachi within!

This book was better than 'Cats' - great trip down memory lane for any Gen X'er - makes the 80s seem rich with culture.

If you ignore the book's ugly-as-sin cover artwork and delve into this maniacal volume of absolutely useless yet totally vital pop cultural information, you will be proud to say: "I am a member of the Chachi Generation." Buy it and love it.

The book is essestial for anyone who came of age in the 1980's. Though many consider it a forgettable decade, for those of us who grew up during those years, it's great to have a refresher course on things that we considered to be so important at the time. And where else are you going to find an entry on the brilliant, yet short lived series, "Manimal?"

I flunked algebra in high school. Now I'm taking a 095 algebra class at a local collage and now I'm getting A's and B's. It's a great book and ours came packaged with lecture CDs. It maybe the best algebra text book but you still have to do practice problems over and over to get good grades they don't just happen because the book was so good.

I used this book in my first back-to-college algebra class, and it is a great book. Easy to understand explanations and step-by-step instructions made algebra way easier than I remembered! Please note: the companion solutions manual has many wrong answers. The book itself, however, is great. If your class is using this book, you will do well.

I would really like to thank Mr. Angel for putting together a great book. I have to admit that I was afraid of Algebra until I started studying from this book.

Thanks !

I wish he had written all of my text books. Everything is clearly laid out with examples that are broken down into small steps to make understanding even clearer.

The book was laid out well and establishes a good flow with the reader. Contains helpful drawings and diagrams. This book is well suited for visual learners.

I found this book on a bookshelf in the house I inherited from my grandparents, and couldn't imagine I would get so into the story. I was simply fascinated all the way through and couldn't stop turning the pages to find out what happened to this patient or that one. I never thought reading about a particular field could be so interesting, however I do love medical shows and books like ER, etc. so maybe thats why. I wish there were more books similar to this one, I really hated for it to end!

An interesting juxapostion.

I have never before read things that absolutely shocked me, in regards to the medical community. Sticking together, mistakes that are made, etc . . .

And I have never read such things; coming away with complete **empathy** towards the medical community - for the impossible task they have undertaken in assisting others. A fantastic read. Before anyone becomes overly critical of the medical community, I would suggest reading this book.

I first stumbled upon this book over 20 years ago at the library, and upon finding it used some years later, snapped it up. I've nearly memorized it and I never fail to find something I missed last time I read it.

Until I learned the actual identity of the doctor (Dr. Alan Nourse, renowned juvenile sci-fi writer and longtime health columnist for Good Housekeeping), I wondered if he ever wrote anything else and was thrilled to learn he had. Upon doing so, I raided the magazine archives at my local library and yes, this book was a huge best-seller (although long out of print, it isn't hard to find) and got a lot of press when it was released.

Dr. Nourse died way too soon, in 1992 at age 64.

Great book, tells it as it was. I knew the author; was
our family physician for several years.

This book is excellent even though it is slightly outdated. The struggle with medical internship is not much different now than it was then. If you want to KNOW how it feels read this book!