Computer Science Books

I would recommend it for everyone.

The good points about the robot were the remote control and how easily a BS2 could be added to the robot so that I could write my own programs and try them out. Even with the [poor] wheels and "caster" it was probably the best experimenter's robot out there. The information on the CD-ROM was great, although I wish it was available on paper (costs a lot to print out all the information).

Myke seemed to have learned from the first robot and the Sumo Bot is fantastic. It now has a very solid sheet metal chassis (with a front scoop), it runs by 4 "AA" batteries and has a caterpiller bulldozer like track that allows it to run over just about any surface. The robot is really built like a bulldozer, it will last a long time.

Best of all, the optional pieces from the original kit, the BS2 and AppMod are built into the robot. All you have to do is put the CD-ROM into your PC, download the programs and BS2 programming software, conenct the robot to the PC using a serial cable and you can start writing your own programs or adding your own hardware.

This review probably reads like a sales pitch, but I've had my Sumo Bot for a week now and I LOVE IT! It's very robust, easy to use and program and best of all, it's fun.

Brad

I especially like the way the Petersens relate the child's e-world to his or own real world and how, for example e-friends, while important, must not replace school friends; e-homework help should not replace the library, a real book, or personal parent support.

In short, parenting by internet, while a tremendous addition, must not be a substitute for our personal and interpersonal worlds. The Petersens help us do that. Nice touch.

The tech-haters include heavyweight social thinkers such as Neil Postman (The Disappearance Of Childhood and Technopoly); Sven Birkerts (The Gutenberg Elegies); and Jane Healey (Endangered Minds and Failure To Connect).

Among the tech-lovers we should name Harley Hahn (Harley Hahn Teaches The Internet); Esther Dyson (Release 2.1); and two authors who I've just discovered, Evelyn Petersen and her daughter Karin. Their new book, Sams Teach Yourself E-Parenting Today, explains how using computers and the Internet can enhance our parenting skills.

Petersen and Petersen have set themselves two difficult goals: to counsel about parenting in general, and to explain how the Internet can help to forge a friendly relationship between parents and kids. In both these areas they have succeeded admirably. The person-to-person sections contain parenting advice which is savvy, compassionate, and sensible. The chapters about computers are clear, balanced, and written expertly.

The book contains excellent sections about many issues, some well-publicized and others little-known. How can children use the Internet to make friends worldwide? What does every parent need to know about the various aspects of Internet safety? How can using computers build family togetherness? Which web sites offer the most pertinent parenting activities and advice? ... I was especially impressed with Petersen's 40-page Appendix titled 'A Brief Guide To Child Development.' This section is eminently useful as a gage for helping us to understand what is "normal" (and abnormal) for children at various ages and stages of growth.

Ready or not, the Internet is here in our schools and homes. Computers are powerful tools, and -- let us not forget -- potentially dangerous ones. Children unsupervised, or children who receive poor computer instruction, will become at best technologically illiterate, and at worst harmed by misuse and over-use of these tremendous tools. Fortunately, for kids are who receive the right training, the Internet offers many remarkable benefits. The great virtue of Sams Teach Yourself E-Parenting Today is the way it teaches us to use technology well, while reminding us that creating a caring and enjoyable relationship with our children is the most important parenting skill of all.

Michael Pastore, Reviewer

For those of us facing the responsibility of raising children in the new millennium, this book is a treasure trove of helpful guidance. A wonderful combination of information and advice that is concise and practical while at the same time is on the cutting edge of our information age.

Using technology to enhance the parenting experience, while it would probably give our grandparents a coronary, is as practical today as Castor Oil must have been at the turn of the previous century. There is a misconception that e-Parenting means less hands-on involvement and interaction between parents and children. The authors shatter this myth by emphasizing that his brave new e-World is one to be shared, embraced and celebrated together.

The wealth of information and resources included here makes this book an invaluable tool. The care and enthusiasm of the authors makes it a pleasure to experience. It's scary to think of the hours the authors must have spent crawling around the Web for worthwhile sites to include and review. Lucky for us they did! It is their thorough work that makes this book one you'll want to keep handy the next time you log on.

David Katzner, President, The National Parenting Center

I especially like the way the Petersens relate the child's e-world to his or own real world and how, for example e-friends, while important, must not replace school friends; e-homework help should not replace the library, a real book, or personal parent support.

In short, parenting by internet, while a tremendous addition, must not be a substitute for our personal and interpersonal worlds. The Petersens help us do that. Nice touch.

I have used the methods in this book to develop advanced algorithms in Computer Graphics which could not have been developed in any other way.

The book is both a tutorial and reference. It is clearly written and organized.

When I first read this book, it was as though a bolt of lightning had struck me. Applying its methods, I became a much better programmer. I went from someone who struggled to get the code right to someone who always got the code right. For the first time I understood what programming was all about. I read the book on vacation while my wife and I were staying at my father's home in Sag Harbor New York and it was one of the most incredible intellectual adventures of my life. I'll never forget the smell of the sea and the sand and the logic going off like lightning flashes inside my brain.

Grusky, a newcomer to the Sci-Fi book world, could quite possibly be one of the greatest writers our time. Deftly intelligent and with quick-witted humor, Grusky explores the darker side of the high-technology trends.

This book will win awards this year. ***** 5 Stars

I also found the pictures/graphics extremely helpful, especially in the sections on probability. I can finally make sense of combinations and permutations and other probability concepts.

Also extremely helpful is the way the book explains which formulas to use when, and why they should be used in that instance. This helps to pull everything together and see how many of the concepts relate to one another. I think this is key to understanding stats.

I've gone from fearing stats to actually enjoying it, all because it now makes sense thanks in large part to this book.

Howard Rheingold, former Editor of the Whole Earth Review and one of the pure-gold original thinkers in the Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelly circle, lays down a serious challange to both decisionmakers and software producers that has yet to be fully understood. Originally published in 1985, this book was a "must read" at the highest levels of advanced information processing circles then, but sadly its brilliant and coherent message has yet to take hold--largely because bureaucratic budgets and office politics are major obstacles to implementing new models where the focus is on empowering the employee rather than crunching financial numbers.

This book is a foundation reading for understanding why the software Bill Gates produces (and the Application Program Interfaces he persists in concealing) will never achieve the objectives that Howard and others believe are within our grasp--a desktop toolkit that not only produces multi-media documents without crashing ten times a day, but one that includes modeling & simulation, structured argument analysis, interactive search and retrieval of the deep web as well as commercial online systems, and geospatially-based heterogeneous data set visualization--and more--the desktop toolkit that emerges logically from Howard's vision must include easy clustering and linking of related data across sets, statistical analysis to reveal anomalies and identify trends in data across time, space, and topic, and a range of data conversion, machine language translation, analog video management, and automated data extraction from text and images. How hard can this be? VERY HARD. Why? Because no one is willing to create a railway guage standard in cyberspace that legally mandates the transparency and stability of Application Program Interfaces (API). Rheingold gets it, Gates does not. What a waste!

It's also a pretty entertaining read, though I think the author gives a bit too much credit to von Neuman.

The novel feature of the book is the way in which past interviews are brought up to date and the interviewees give their opinions on the differences between what they predicted and what happened.

The writing is excellent and very accessible. The interviewees come across as very normal people (which indeed they are) but it is very easy to forget they were still amongst the movers and shakers of computing in the late 20th century.

I think this book is a valuble work for those who see technology are more than just a vehicle for making money.

However, for a Java developer (the book doesn't pretend to teach you Java) who is new to WebObjects, those first 11 chapters are a a godsend, filled with well-written text containing a huge amount of practical advice and illustrated with extensive screenshots. Reading this book and doing the exercises will save you literally dozens if not hundreds of hours of "doing it the hard way."

Chapters 12 and 13, on the other hand, are filled with bits and pieces that are NOT easy (or sometimes possible) to get from the official documentation and can only be learned by finding a more experienced developer to mentor you. For me, these two chapters were worth the price, and for a computer programming book, the price is quite reasonable.

A big thumbs up for this book as an introductory WebObjects tome, and here's to hoping that some publisher will contract Mr. Marker to write a follow-up "Advanced WebObjects for Mac OS X" because I'll be first in line to buy that one.