Computers Books

This is a great way to understand data flow at the machine level.

I especially like the part on memory and IO.

Author has explained low-level concepts lucidly. It is easy on eyes. Basic concepts become very clear. It is one of those 'can't keep down without reading few chapters at a stretch' kind of technical book. Very few books have this edge. Just don't feel like stopping reading it.

Beginners must read this book before attempting to read more in-depth low-level technical books. This book is a must for people who are exposed to high-level languages but have not studied Computer Science.

Randall Hyde is doing really good job. Every software developer should read it.

This is a great book but I have to disagree with the overall viewpoint. I've been doing embedded programming for a while and if that's all I'd ever done I would totally agree that understanding low level concepts helps write better code. However, I also write a lot of code in C#. People who normally use high level languages such as C#, VB.Net, or JAVA are probably not going to benefit much from this book. These languages are so far abstracted from the hardware level that the concepts are hard to apply anywhere. On the other hand, if you still use malloc on a daily basis, you need to read the book :) Anyway, the book is easy to read and I never caught any errors. If you want to learn about computers at a low level, then this is a great book to start with!

If you're like most IT people out in the workforce today, you've got pressures from all sides - deadlines, keeping current with changes in platforms, hardware, software tools, etc. Gah! It never ends!

So, you pick up these "Write Great Code" books, thinking that you'll be a better programmer.

And it's interesting in a way that you remember when you were just getting into the IT field as a student and later as an employee and maybe now as a consultant or contractor.

But, then you realize that this is like thinking about how your car's components are working while you're driving madly to work on some beltway. Only your skills as a driver can keep you from getting hit by a big semi, not the working knowledge of your V8 engine. Guys who work on their cars on the weekend, know more about them than you do, but hey, it gets you to work and back.

And so, you sigh and put the book down and concentrate on your SQL, or your VB or whatever else keeps you employed.

Why?

Because your users and your manager don't care about what goes on at the machine level. They want the deliverables NOW. The efficiency of your code is of no importance to them, though it is to you.

However, with enough discipline and some thought to what you're doing, you CAN make this book work for you, and get an edge over someone else's sloppy code and maybe even save yourself some programming time.

Because this book is for the guys who are the computer counterparts of the greasy-looking guys on the street who could tell you what's wrong with your car, even if you can't.

Yes, you can still learn of lot from this book, as noted in the other reviews. But it is now showing its age. This book was written for Sketchup 4.0 when only a time-limited trial was available for free. Sketchup is now at version 6.0 and free from Google (except for the pro version). The advice in this book on how to squeeze a tutorial session into a time-limited trial is just distracting. More importantly, you will not be introduced to the new features in 6.0, such as styles and better organization of model structure. It would be very useful to have Dennis Fukai's advice on how best to use Sketchup 6.0.

When the book/CD came I had problems getting the CD to work Didn't know if it was me or the CD or my PC. I contacted Mr.Fukai and he e-mailed me back immediatly. He stayed with me through a dozen Emails trying to help me.
The CD was bad BTW and he had his wife send me out a new one that worked just fine.
I was a bit exhausted from it all by the time the CD came but stuff happens to the best of us.
The CD is incredably helpful along with the book of illustrations. I haven't gotten through even half of it due to my work load but I'm sure when I continue with it I won't have much trouble in spite of being PC challenged.
Mr.Fukai I think has this book geared for people like myself as well as hard core PC users.
He seems to be doing his best to take you through it one step at a time slowly and deliberate.
I highly recommend this book/CD

I am sure if you are a Google fan you now know that they offer SketchUp for free. Dr. Fukai's book assumed you had a limited amount of time (480 minutes) using the SketchUp 4.0 trial version included with his book. I can say that his book is truly one fantastic way to learn a lot about the details of modeling with SketchUp. Dr. Fukai's interactive "shorties" allows you to go over as often as needed to learn the details of this 3D software. I was having some difficulty part way through the tutorials and emailed Dr. Fukai and received detailed instructions on how to proceed. He is an excellent teacher and his book is highly recommended.

The book is awsome! The instructions are so detailed and outlined. I plan on building my own family home, this is the Book!

As for the author, a master of his craft!

Mr. Fukai and Mrs. Babara Fukai, You have both left a wonderful lasting memory in my mind!

Thanks You

Michael in San Antonio Texas

I study architecture in Havana, Cuba. I'd like to learn more about this matter specially 3d Architectural Working Drawings but, I can not have possibilities to buy any of yor books. Can you help me out? thanks, Roany.

I really wish I had discovered this earlier! I received it yesterday and have already fell in love with the wide array of add-ins that are included on the cd. The book is a great tool to quickly identify the effect that I want. This is a must-have for anyone who has Photoshop Elements!

The book isn't worth much, but the plugins are great. The one click stuff is a great time saver for me, and it really does make things look more snappy without too much hassle. Well worth it for the CD full of plugins!

I love this book. I've already used alot of the layer styles already. Lots of examples. Tons of ideas.

I have had Photoshop Elements 2 for over a year, but until I got this book and CD ROM I had no idea just how creative I could be with the program. There were a lot of effects that I tried to apply to my art but did not quite get the results I desired. This book has helped me unleash my "creative genius". As graphic design student, I have found it to be the best investment I have made besides my computer components. You will find the book helpful, as well, to view the layer styles before applying them to your art. I had found at first that I spent a great deal of time applying and deleting styles and effects before finding the right one, and then I read the book (duh!). I found full-color samples of all the different presets contained on the disk scattered throughout the chapters. It is a small book, but it is very content-rich.

I had used Photoshop 7 in the graphic design lab at school , but I could not afford to buy it. This book and PSE 2 together cost less than $100, and I have no problem duplicating lessons and completing projects at home that are supposed to be done using PS 7.

When Adobe introduced Photoshop Elements it had a low-end program for newcomers to digital photography. It based the cut-down Elements program on its expensive and complex main Photoshop program. However, when you buy Elements you are actually installing quite a lot of the main program (even though no menu commands exist to use new features), and people have been finding ways to exploit the advanced features of Photoshop that Adobe thought would be too complex for Elements users.

Several web sites and two books supply software to advance the capabilities of Elements. One book lets you use some of the professional-level features of the main program, and the other provides some wild effects. That book is the One-Click Wow book I'm reviewing here (the other one is Richard Lynch's The Hidden Powers of Photoshop Elements).

Years ago I wrote a book on Photoshop version 3, and even without enhancements Photoshop Elements 3 is close to being equal to it. The effects in One-Click Wow can be done in several steps in the Main Photoshop program, and in fact that's how they're produced. Unfortunately the effects are of the "take it or leave it" variety - there's no way of altering them - but luckily Jack Davis has produced effects that will appeal to most people.

Because this is a "cheat" and not an officialy approved set of program extensions, you have to manually copy the extensions from the CD to your hard drive. If Elements is running you need to reboot, and then you'll find them listed in the menus for Layer Effects and other places.

One set of extensions work on photographs, and as well as those allowing you to change the appearance of the whole photograph there are other effects that let you add frames or edges. There's a whole series of effects that allows you to change a photograph so that it looks like a painting.

The major set of effects works on graphics and type. They'll change your designs and words to look like chrome or many kinds of natural materials, as well as plenty that look like neon signs. In fact there are several hundred effects, as well as extra brushes and patterns.

It's easiest to see this product not so much as a book, but more like a software add-on with an instruction manual that gives examples of almost every effect - in full color. There's even a multi-page tutorial in using the effects which should explain all you need to know about how to use them.

Davis has been producing the Photoshop Wow books of effects since the beginning of the main program, so the effects here will make a major difference to your pictures. What I've also noticed is the way Davis crops his pictures which is a tutorial in itself - he crops very tightly and you can see the improvement.

So if you can see a copy of this book before you buy it, take a look because what you see is what you're going to get. For most people it's a no-brainer buy, especially since even if you had the main Photoshop program you'd have to do numerous activities on your pictures to equal what you get here.

For the price, it's an amazing bargain for the extra powers you get. I have both this and The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements, and the two of them make Elements a much more powerful and worthwhile program.

THE BEST Book on UDB to get INDEPTH!! If you want to know indepth, read this -most of the content may be in ibm db2 udb information center also.

I was trying to learn SQL and database basic. I have been looking to several different books and I was lacking a book that would systematicaly explain data base and SQL basics. This is the book. Chapters regarding Data Retrival are just right, not to short and not to long. Just right.

I recomend the book to somebody that would like to learn SQL and DB2 basics.

I used this book to write Exam 704 (Advance DB2 UDB DBA certification). I cleared the exam with flying colors.
I consider this book as DB2 UDB Bible. This is one of the some good books on DB2 UDB.
Also recommend to DBAs who are not preparing for certification since it covers almost all the aspects of DB2 database.

Regards
Prakash Gautam

I just found this book, and after reading it wish I had found this years ago. This is the most comprehensive book on DB2 that I have ever seen. This book has already saved me a lot of time. The performance chapter is great and helped me improve the performance of my DB2 server by over 30% in less than a week.

This is the book I was waiting for long on DB2UDB. This not only covers topics for certifications but also good (very good) reference material for all UDB DBAs on LUW platform.

When was the last time you picked up a book and couldn't put it down? Markus Egger's "Advanced Object Oriented Programming with Visual FoxPro 6.0" is such a book. He covered everything I needed to know. He covered the fundamentals (a short review of terms), given clear explanations to everyday problems and demonstrated how objects are used in real world designs.

My favorite chapter was "Using Shrink-Wrapped Classes". Until now I have avoided using the available classes distributed with Visual FoxPro because there was a lack of documentation in the original manuals and didn't have the time to open each class and explore. Now that I have read this chapter I ask myself why was I pushing a square wheel up a hill all these years when I could have used these classes immediately and start building on them. Another favorite was needing to know how to hide properties and methods in classes and never being able to figure out how to make these classes work properly. Now I know!

I read this book in two evenings and now I am going back over my classes to re-configure them.

Hentzenwerke Publishing has done a phenomenal job with all it's titles. Not one has been a disappointment. Unlike IDG Books "Bible" series which has been nothing more than fluff and someone wanting to show-off their code.

Almost reads like a novel. I couldn't put the book down. It was immediately relevant, and I can see it being so for years to come. It has permanently changed the way I write code in VFP.

Overall pretty good book, I pretty much read it cover-to-cover over a two day period. However, my expectations were a bit high after reading all the other reviews on this site. First of all, his description of the Component Gallery totally lost me. More importantly, from chapter 12 on, the author elects to assume that everyone has access to a ... piece of software called Rational Rose to design an OOP app. This disappointed me, I would have preferred to have things explained in a way that I could follow along with the tools I have as a VFP developer.

This is probably the best book that I have ever purchased for learning the real nuts and bolts on Visual FoxPro's OOP capabilities and the tools available in it. I encourage both new and seasoned programmers in Visual FoxPro to BUY THIS BOOK!!. I don't think you'll find a better one out there. The way Markus covers the FFCs and other advanced topics is great!!! It is hard to describe in 100 words or less how valuable this book is.

In order to benefit the Power of VFP, a developer should understand the power of OOP in software development. This book tells and guides you how OOP is applied in application development using VFP. The explanation of OOP tells it loud and clear that Object Orientation is very important aspect in today's software development. Markus and his associates really deserves commendation of doing it well.

I bumped into this book by way of "Head First PMP", also written by Stellman and Greene. Because I liked the PMP resource so much, I thought I should give this book a chance and I was not disappointed. Packed with useful information, case studies and examples, this book is a resource any technical project manager will want to have in their collection.
One bonus I did not count on was the companion website which includes downloadable templates, PPT slides and other electronic assets.

Highly recommended!

This is a nice book, everything about it is so neat and nice. I am glad I purchased this book from Amazon.

Applied Software Project Management
Reviewed by Steven D. Sewell, PMP
Project Management Institute, Tampa Bay Chapter

Having been peripherally involved as a software release project team member in the past, I knew enough to get my piece of the puzzle delivered. The information in this book allows me to broaden my perspective and actually comprehend the picture I see on the puzzle box cover. The book is written in a straight ahead manner. If you are one who like examples of what is being discussed, then this book is for you. The use of clear definitions makes each topic understandable and the analogies make them memorable. Tables and scripts are used throughout to exemplify each tool and technique. Most useful in practice are the sections that aid in the diagnosing of problems that can be encountered. This book definitely hits its goal of delivering a practical guide into the hands of a software project manager. The only improvement would be to have "handbook" or "guide" placed somewhere on the cover.

This book covers concisely all the modern aspects os software project management, without the complexity found in more formal PM sources like the PMBOK. Moreover, the job of translating the broad and general concepts covered in the PMBOK to practical day-to-day scenarios is the major benefit from buying it. It won't, however, cover an specific issue like estimation to the level that enables you to be an estimator (this subject, for instance, is only 17 pages long), but will provide you the guidelines and references to additional material to do so.

Do you work for a software organization who where there are chronic problems producing software on schedule and without defects? If you do, then this book is for you! Authors Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene, have done an outstanding job of writing a practical book that describes the specific tools, techniques and practices that a project manager needs to put in place in order to run a software project or fix an ailing one.

Stellman and Greene, begin by showing you the vision and scope document. Then, the authors cover the wideband delphi estimation process. They continue by covering project schedules. Next, the authors show you how to do an inspection. Then, the authors discuss use cases. Then, they show you how to do configuration management. The authors continue by showing you how to test plans. They also introduce you to practices, tools, and techniques to your organization's culture. Next, the authors show you why it is important to understand responsibility, authority and accountability. Then, they show you how to prevent the most common sources of failure in outsourced projects. Finally, the authors show you why it's important to understand when process improvement is useful and when it isn't.

A project manager can use this most excellent book to diagnose and fix the most serious problems that plague software projects. More importantly, this book contains essential project management tools, techniques and practices, which have been optimized to be as straightforward and easy to implement as possible.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

Margaret Chu's book is a delightful book with the just the right amount of humor and sophistication. She takes a complex subject, data warehousing, and presents it in a non threatening, easy to understand, plain English style, that makes the book a quick read. In addition to being able to finish the book quickly you'll come away with a feeling of satisfaction and you'll know a lot of the dos and don'ts of data warehousing.

I have been saying for years that the company that can harness its collective information across the supply chain can increase market share and profits by maximizing customer service through maximizing effective resource utilization to drive down total costs. This is what Margaret Chu has shown you can do with a well thought out and planned data warehouse initiative. But it won't be a cake walk. It takes discipline to do it right. However, with Margaret's book, which is full of insights, remember this sections, and humorous but poignant nursery rhymes you will learn how to apply the finer points of her book to create a successful data warehouse initiative.

Margaret starts off with a simple and clear explanation of a data warehouse. She then explains how a data warehouse and a data mart are different. She further explains that a data mart is type of data warehouse with a very specific purpose. She emphasizes that the type of data warehouse you choose needs to be aligned with the corporate strategy and that you need to think through the why of what you are trying to accomplish before you can choose the correct type of data warehouse.

The last chapter of "Blissful Data" is dedicated to two case studies to further arm the reader with a positive road map to data warehouse success. The first is a success story and the second is a failure. However, Margaret goes further than just telling stories of success and failure. In each case study she reviews what went well and what didn't. Yes even in successful projects some things could have been done better and even in failed projects there are things that went well and need to be capitalized on.

Well I have now told you about the beginning and the end but I suggest you now go out and purchase this book to fill in the middle, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

In a very enjoyable read, Margaret lays out the major lessons people need to know in order to provide a true environment for business to see, understand, and act upon their data. She outlines the lessons with humorous analogies, relevant stories, and practical experiences.

Margaret also provides a very natural progression of the information so the book is good for the novice as well as the experienced. Extremely useful were the "remember" points sprinkled throughout the chapters and the impactful quotes that encapsulate important ideas and messages.

Margaret Chu brings a unique blend of technical insight and practical organizational acumen to this beguiling field. I've been associated with data as a corporate resource since early testing of IBM's GIS in the 60's decade, early use of Software AG's ADABASE in the 70's, and beneficial application of early PC-based relational databases of the 80's. Those expecting a treatise on the mechanics of data warehousing to gain a marginal advantage might be disappointed. They should put aside their geek-bias; this readable book can give them a quantum leap advantage to build a data warehouse that actually delivers what the sponsors expect. The two chapters on "Politics: ...Who Owns It Anyway? and ...Who's Going to Pay? are the heart of this practical book.

If you've ever tackled a project where you set out to track woozles and ended up fleeing from heffalumps, this is just the book to save you from future tramplings. Blissful Data is not merely about data warehouses, though you'll find that subject thoroughly rendered. Margaret Chu analyses all the factors that make or break a project of any kind, with a particular focus on data warehouse implementation. You'll come away from this book with a substantial introduction to modern Project Management principles. As Ms Chu points out, the issues inherent in creating data warehouses are largely human issues, and she shows how best to view and handle those issues, in addition to the technical ones.

Was I beginning to sound pedantic? Fortunately Blissful Data smooths the path through dense underbrush with lots of personal examples and whimsical analogies. For example, we precede the discussion of corporate culture with one of Village People culture--complete with illustration of said singers, in case you'd forgotten what they looked like. And yes, my opening line concerning woozles and heffalumps was inspired by Ms Chu's other references to A. A. Milne's fabled stories. I was repeatedly struck with amusement and even a few guffaws, and was thereby refreshed to undertake the analyses and explanations. There is enough serious medicine in Blissful Data to keep me coming back for repeated doses, but a spoonful of sugar eases the swallowing.

This is definitely not a book reserved for tech geeks or business managers or execs. It speaks to everyone who has ever tried to improve the way they do their job. With a career spanning 20 years of Information Technology projects, I consider myself well versed in all aspects of system implementation. Yet as Zen teacher Sunryu Suzuki noted, "Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement." Blissful Data is the sort of book that will provide lasting benefits in improving on my perfection. I highly recommend it to anyone who ever works with people or performs a job.

Margaret Chu leads us into and through the world of Data Warehousing with a writing style unique to "IT primers."
This book was fun to read. Blissful Data informs and entertains. The examples and the book's illustrations facilitate the readers' education in all aspects of projects involving large amounts of data.
For me, it's indeed rare for such a valuable learning experience to be so enjoyable!

This is a great book. I read it two years ago, and it's still very useful today. It is wide enough for a beginner and deep enough for you to become an advanced C++ user. The content is structured very well, material explained very clearly and answers every question came out to my mind as I read it. This single book is enough for you to become a C++ power user. It made C++ as my best programming language. An excellent book for reference, too.

Prata's knowledge, style make program learning as easy and enjoyable as possible. This is by far the best programming (and perhaps the best technical) book I have used. A must buy for begginners to C++, with complete coverage that will satisfy intermediate-advanced developers.

I would like to add mine to the list of glowing reviews of Prata's C++ Primer. I came from a Fortran/Pascal background, with no knowledge of C or C++, and found the book easy to follow and use. I thought that picking up new languages on my own would be easy until I started using other technical books. Since I first bought Prata's book I've used a dozen or more other technical books, and have never yet found one which is as lucid, comprehensive and fun to use as his, and highly recommend it for anyone trying to get into C++, even though it is a little dated now.

Half of book covers the basic topics in other languages like data type, loop control ... in c++ concept. The other half devotes to pure c++ concept like class, polymorphism, inheritance, instantiate the object, dynamic and static binding, virtual function, friend, template... It doesn't mention STL. In my opinion, this is the only one you need to learn c++. For advance knowledge, you may need a STL book and any book in deep discussion like the book from Stroup Bjan or Scott Myers. This book covers pretty much in detail all the topics, along the pitfalls problem like deep copy, static variable, header file... It also includes many userful, short examples with the hidden errors. I am glad that this is my first book in c++. The problem is you can not read it very fast because there are many complex discusions, the trade off is it maybe the only one to start c++.

This really is a good book for getting started. The first half of the book is well written and the source code examples work well. I was about half way through the book, and really looking forward to using its examples of VC++ classes, when the source code examples started using header files that don't work with MSVC++5, which isn't even the newest release! I also noticed that the writing dropped off quite a bit at that point. The tech support line could not offer help with the outdated files, which should have been an obvious and frequent question. There are also plenty of source code typos in the second half (available as a list on their web site), sometimes several per page, including obvious stuff like a missing "main()" function that wasn't on the list. Because the source codes are small text files on a floppy, an updated and corrected set of source files would be an easy download from their existing website if they cared to set it up. In their defense, they did offer a refund for the book, but I'm keeping it. This book will get you started, and take you to the point where you can start jumping to other books. I liked it in combination with "The C++ training guide" and "Visual C++ in 21 days." I'm giving it 4 stars because the cover doesn't claim it's current or works with VC++ (it *almost* says this). If it did say this, I'd knock it down to 2 stars.

This book pulls together a number of sources from across the globe and gives an in depth explanations of a number of wireless architectures. It not only explaines key featuers of those architectures but also provides case studies which put them into context. Great for the budding and the experienced architect!

I was drawn to this book because I figured a big outfit like Cap Gemini Ernst & Young must have learned a lot, probably the hard way, showing clients how to build a wireless infrastructure that turns profits. And it turns out that's just what I found here. There are lots of examples in this book, ones from the best consultants in the world, that I can use with my own clients.

What I most liked about this book was the approach they used to provide business justification for technological decisions. It provides the approach necessary to avoid purchasing the wrong technology for the wrong reasons, ie: purchase it because it was featured in the latest tech magazine as the coolest technology when it really is a poor fit to our requirements.

This is a good read and a must buy.

An excellent collection of solid practical content, a book that can be chosen as an academic course to be taught in variety of engineering disciplines such as electronics, computer science, Internet Technologies, etc. because of its solid practical approaches to deliver solution as opposed to hypothesizing on untested value propositions.
In the era when many people rush to write books on any new technical catch phrase for the mere gratification of having authored a technical book that may augment their professional aspiration, the authors of "Wireless Enterprise Application Architecture" have provided the reader with a reference book that is a valuable knowledge source. Relatively small font size and condensed and to the point graphics that enhance readers understanding of major points discussed in the 630 pages of text are all indication of authors being the true subject matter specialists.
The views presented in the book are both from 35000 feet and at the landing level suitable for enterprise strategists as well as technical and tactical workforce.

I was doing research for our company's wireless project and came across this book. The chapters on wireless in the supply chain were excellent and highly relevant to my project. I wish I had known about them before I presented my findings to my colleagues. Either way, the book will serve as an excellent reference for my project.