Computers Books

I purchased this book a few days ago, and as soon as I read the first chapter, I realized that I needed to read the entire book as quickly as possible. This is a wonderful book, and parts of it truely invoked a state of "nerdvana" in me!

PRO's:

First, I will say that the information in this book is tightly packed. There is no unnecessary verbage, and the writing is direct, to the point and understandable. There is a high ratio of technical content to noise, and this greatly contributed to my enjoyment of the book. Even in the technical areas that I was already familiar with, I found the summary of the information to be precise, accurate and helpful. I can see keeping the book around as a reference guide for years to come. The general structure of the book, for example the sections in grey boxes with the [!] annotation, works well, and the end-of-chapter summary and review (particularly the Q&A) are good.

There were several sections, ones that I was personally weak in to start with, that I found particularly helpful, such as the sections on analyzing packed or compressed executables and malware. I had just never gotten around to reading the whitepapers on these, and I'm glad I didn't as those chapters of the book summarized in a few pages what would have taken many more to pick up by reading other original sources. I personally thought that the chapter-to-chapter flow of the narrative was fine for anyone who does incident response on a regular basis.

Through the years, Harlan Carvey has developed and made available his tools in an open (perl) format with no need for compensation. The tools on the DVD alone are worth the money of the book, and are a great addition to any IR toolkit. The references to third party tools, many of which I hadn't heard of, were also particularly helpful.

CON's:

If you are not very technical, or not very familiar with the Windows operating system, you may be overwhelmed by the level of technical detail. If you are an experienced administrator, however, you should be able to adapt what you know about other operating systems (e.g. file structures, process execution, etc.) fairly easily. There were a few typographical errors in the book that didn't detract from its readability or technical accuracy.

All in all, and excellent book, and a must-have for ANY windows incident responder.

Harlan Carvey's book, Windows Forensic Analyisis, is an invaluable resource in any computer forensic examination of a Windows based computer. In real-life experience, I had a case where I had to determine file use by a former employee. The company never took the computer out of service and continued to use the machine after the employee left the company. By using the information in Windows Forensic Analysis on system restore points and MRU registry entries, I was able to determine not only what files were used but on what days. This book is one of the first I look to when I have questions on examining Windows systems. If you only have one reference book for Windows examinations, this should be the one. A must-have for any computer forensic examiners library!!

Once again Harlan Carvey has provided a resource worth every penny. The chapters detailing registry and memory analysis alone were extremely valuable to me. The accompanying DVD provides countless Perl scripts to assist in the collection and sorting of data.

This book is essential for understanding how to analyze memory dumps, albeit many forensic investigators will usually turnoff a computer instead of getting a memory capture to do a more traditional analysis.

The included scripts are very helpful. This book unlike many other books in this genera is designed for the technical professional. Forensic analysis is often like a who done it mystery, and having some more tools in your toolkit will assist you in thinking outside the box. The registry analysis was thorough and essential for a recent project. The memory dump analysis scripts were helpful in a recent Defcon Capture the Flag Competition. A sample chapter is avaliable online.

Harlan poured his clear love of incident response and of the forensic profession into this book. Windows Forensic Analysis dives into many exceptional topics that are routinely overlooked in similar material. The entire book covers many novel analysis techniques and topics, the registry analysis chapter and the file analysis chapter discusses many detailed artifacts and areas of examination during forensics that up until this was published was only discussed deep inside forensic circles or discovered through hard earned on-the-ground experience. The book's only drawback is that it covers too many topics and the chapters do not flow together as well as I would have hoped. A single chapter is excellent, but in many cases it doesn't lead you to the next one. I also found that the entire book could have been written on just registry forensics. However, in order to create broad appeal, the registry section was probably shortened. You can tell Harlan has a lot more to tell. Finally, the CDROM companion could have had more polish to the file layout as finding some of the tools is slightly confusing upon initial glance. Even with these minor drawbacks, the information in each chapter is phenomenal. I recommend this book to anyone looking to advance their understanding of the Windows analysis environment.

This is an amazing book. It's not a tutorial for a building device driver. For device driver developers, it is an essential reference for understanding NT's kernel system. This book is also great for those who are not building device drivers but want to understand the NT kernel. The chapters on virtual memory, I/O architecture and I/O managers are totally worth the price of the book.

If you are writing Windows Device Drivers, this is one of 3 books you absolutely must have. Buy it.

Dear all,

We have an plotter printer HP 7550a and we run NT as operating system. There are no drivers for nt for this printer.

We now are trying to get this printer working under wp 5.1 because there are no printer drivers for NT.

Who can help me get the driver I am looking for. It does not matter if it is an NT driver or an corel wp5.1 driver.

Please help me we would realy appriciate this efford !

with kind regards,

Jeropen van Mourik

ING BANK Netherlands

This book is VERY well written and VERY readable. I needed other sources to get an actual driver written (see Chris Cant's book) but only because this book gives a much more complete picture and I needed something more specific. That's my point...if you want a good, solid understanding of the system and an excellent reference, get this book. It's not often one finds technical-minded people with such writing skill.

I think its a good book and well organized, my only black poing is that I missed a toolkit section like WinDriver-www.jungo.com- or numega that enable easy and quick development.

This was a great book - if I had just one book about Win 95, this would be it.

i have read the book for the 3rd edition but this was in my class Tim class some one stole the cd for the book so i couldnt do some of the things it sead to do so im just going to try to get the next best thing

Livingston & Straub combine thorough knowledge and casual writing skills nicely, resulting in an easy to find by, easy to follow and easy to execute by reference tome. A " Windows 95 Secrets " tweak, MaxMTU / DefaultRcvWindows, effected a software cost savings equal to the cover price!

Before you call me, look at 'Windows 95 Secrets' by Brian Livingston & Davis Straub, This book provides essential, and much undocumented information about Windows 95 features, installation, Plug and Play, boot files, the Windows desktop, relationships to DOS, networking, performance, and more. Helpful for everyone from the neophyte to the most intense power user. A great gift.

This excellent reference manual has become an indispensable corner stone of my computer library. Well written in clear and concise English the book is full of tips and tricks -- many of them undocumented by Microsoft. "Windows 95 Secrets" has helped me through a number of problematic situations including ones having to do with Network, modem, fax and printer setup and trouble shooting. If you are considering the purchase of only one Windows 95 reference book: this is the one.

Great 3d resource. A positive aspect about this book is that it's not based on any particular software. There is a fair amount of reference to 3DSMax but it is not exclusive to that package. This is especially useful to the uninitiated in that it gives an excellent overview of 3d in general independant of the any particular software.
There's good stuff here for anyone from the merely curious to the professional.

Computer graphics and animation expert Mark Giambruno draws upon the experiences of working professionals about the technology shared through insightful interviews in 3D Graphics & Animation. Offering the novice strong and "user friendly" presentation of information needed by those just learning the 3D area and those who are trying to enter the 3D market, this updated and expanded second edition of 3D Graphics & Animation builds on the well-received segments of the first edition to cover the basics of 3D in general terms. 3D Graphics & Animation also offers excellent and comprehenstive coverage of such related topics as developing a story concept, storyboarding, and putting together a demo real and portfolio. New elements showcased in this second edition include interviews from industry leaders as well as application specific tutorials for 3ds max 4, Maya 4, and LightWave 7 that are included on the CD. If you have a project involving graphics and animation, then give a careful reading to Mark Giambruno's 3D Graphics & Animation!

A great book that not only gives general info about the industry but offers an extensive multi-platform tutorial to get you on your way. Definitely for begginers, but it does what it is supposed to do well.

It amazes me how Mark aims sooo wide but hits so precise! He treats every aspect within 3D art without missing a step. I couldn't imagine a better guide for climbing the sometimes steep and treacherous paths of "Mount 3D".

It's hard to specify who this book is "for". In such cases it might be easier to define the negation: This book is NOT for those who DON'T want to LEARN 3D, because they inevitably will :)

Apart from being a superb 3D artist Mark Giambruno is an excellent writer as well. As if that wasn't enough he's also a great teacher!

What's really cool is that the book has a generic approach. It's not specific for any software but applicable to all. So instead of just learning to master 3DS Max or Maya or any other 3D package, you'll learn to master the art of 3D modelling! Isn't that great? I mean, software are just tools (pretty fancy friggin' tools if you ask me, but still tools) the real stuff is what you got inside you're head, right? On the other hand one can't dismiss tools just like that, it's not like you can blow 3D models out your nose (or acctually... nah I won't go there) so you're still depending on them. Mr. Giambruno is well aware of this and includes versions of the tutorials in the book for 3 different packages on the companion CD.

I use Softimage XSI myself which has no corresponding version on the CD. I have no problems following the tutorials, and I'm a newbie to both 3D modelling and Softimage XSI.

This book won't spend to much time on the shelf if any. If you want to learn 3D you will waste valuable time by not buying this book. If it's not the standard for teaching 3D in schools it sure as heck should be! There's no point that I tell you what areas the book cover since it's better specified elsewhere but I'll do it anyway: EVERYTHING :)

BUY IT!

The book "3D Graphics and Animation" is like some one way ticket to the world of 3D graphics. Since I've bought the russian version of it - my life has changed. Finally I desided to connect my future life with CG.
Whether you are experienced graphist or you're beginner this book is for you. Here you can find all concepts of 3D modelling(polygonal-, spline-, patch-, NURBS-modelling, etc); although it contains chapters about different types of animation, texturing, lighting and special effects.
This book does not refer to some specific software and, I think, this is it's advantage(for better understanding). And what is more - the book builds on lessons, during which you're studying how to deal with 3D.
The most peculiarity of this book is chapter "Finding the Job in 3D Industry "-which I haven't yet found in other books. It was really cool to find it, when I have not any idea about the job in 3D. The other big surprise was to find in detail notices about software and hardware used in 3D.
I think this book is perfect for the peoples who has some experience in working with 3D and doesn't know how to "convent it into cash". Book comes with a lot of helpful information (advicements, internet links, lessons on applied CD)
Thanks to Mark Giambruno - the book is realy nice.

Hello everyone ! I bought this book cause I need it !
Not only for a better understanding of max tools but for the entire process of making of a good 3d movie animation !
Well,this book acomplish its purpose !The book pass through every stages of this process !Congratulations for the author and for his clarity expositions !

I just received my copy, this is not much of a review but I have a question, i will update this as soon as i have my review.
My question: is it normal that the book comes with 2 cd-roms? And why are on the 2 cd-roms the same data?

This is a great book on completing a project, it helps in every respect, lots of tutorials, references, information, examples etc....
One thing is not mentioned, to complete these projects, you will need more then 3DS Max 6, you will need to have Adobe PREMIER to make/edit the movie, for special effects & more, you will need COMBUSTION 3, even though it is not necessary but it will be essential for a complete animation, you will need to have a sound editing software like Cakewalk's SONIC or something similar and of course Adobe Photoshop.
I am very happy with the book, and have already started planning & sketching a storyboard plus modeling the environment I will use, my characters are almost ready, but because of this fantastic book, I didn't know about the sound editing and the movie editing outside of 3DS Max requiered to finish a movie, now with this book I will complete my animation project.

This book is a very good surprise. It's very complete, well explained, very clear.

That book contains exacly what is said on the cover.. So no deception possible! (An exemple that Sanford Kennedy shoud follow because his book about 3ds max 5 is terrible, a total desaster.)

So this is the book to buy! Thank you Mr Barret Fox.

He shows how he developed, boarded, modeled, textured, rigged & animated the 3 figures shown on the cover. He doesn't wander off on side issues, nor does he gloss over the tricky parts. The book comes with a CD of usable models and scenes so you can see what and how he did it.


One word of warning is the author assumes the reader is advanced on the subject - don't get this book if you need a basic how-to animate with computer book.

Because of the reviews of others on Amazon I decided to take a look at this book and then I purchased it. Filled with tons of information. Easy to read, understand, explained well and enjoyable. You cannot go wrong with this book. I doubt even the inexperienced will have any problems using an iPod after reading this.

I knew absolutely nothing about iTunes or iPods..... This book is excellent - it's helped me sort everything out. It's clear, written in as simple language as you get with anything to do with computers and what I really love is that my screen actually matches the illustrations in the book. I'd recommend it to anyone starting out.

Everything you need to know and more. This should be include with the purchase of an IPOD

The iPod is an intuitive device and most folks need only play with it to use most functions. The same thing is true for iTunes. It's when you have gone beyond the obvious and hit a snag or an annoyance that you find whether a reference is useful or not. This books does well at anticipating "second level" issues and provides good guidance. A good example is"compilations" which affects how you browse and hot music is organized. Through the index, I zeroed right in on how this works and setting it to my preference. I would recommend you start with this book whether an absolute beginner or just in need of a reference.

I am new to the ipod experience. All the kids have had them for sometime. I was confused on all the little details which now seem simple due to this easy to read and understand book. Recommend it to all.

I have re-read a number of books immediately after reading them for the first time. Re-reading well-written fiction is of course a pleasure, but I usually reserve this technique for non-fiction that is hard to understand or very dense, and I may re-read immediately after the first read or months or years later.

This book is the first I have decided to re-read before I even finished it. The information presented is so full of useful knowledge that I realized I would forget most of the points while I was taking in the newer stuff. With the diagrams and summaries there is a vast amount of content here.

I have one small criticism that I'd like to make. The book shows common-sense techniques for project management, and on subjects like this we feel we could do the job based on instinct. I think that the book, instead of being almost exclusively saying DO THIS, should have a few examples of DON'T DO THIS. Stories that involve mistakes and disasters tend to make the lesson more memorable.

I have written several books, and I have rarely been more impressed at how the author handles huge amounts of information.

Anyway, this book is worth five stars.

I have been practicing project management/program management and PMO management for 40 years. This is not only a great reference book for all PM's of any sophistication but it should be the Textbook for Technical Colleges and Universities for Project Management courses. I hold it in the same group as the Capers & Jones book on software engineering

This is one of the better books about PMBOK-based ProjectManagement. But what I really miss, is a practical explanation of how to switch theory to reality. For example: The PMBOK defines 44 processes. Some of them have to be done one time (e.g. defining a Project Charter), but many process steps have to be done daily, weekly, monthly and with different participants. So, what I miss is a description how to organize all these processes during a concrete project including a project plan with all these process steps defined as meetings.
This book is a really good introduction to PM and it helps to understand every PMBOK process. But when trying to use this methodology in daily work, you dont know what steps to do with whom and when. I simply miss a kind of project calendar showing how to spread these processes over the timeline.

I've read 10 books on PM in the last 3 years. Without a doubt this is the most practical one I've read. It takes PM theory and goes much further than other beginner's guides to actually telling you how to do apply the theory in the real world. The mind maps are particularly good. I have used these maps extensively for operations staff training and brain storming for phase planning. Highly recommended reading.

As I am taking the responsibilities of a technical leader, I am being introduced more and more into the concepts of project management, and this book has helped me a lot understanding and getting insights into the subject. Compact, rich, simple, and assumes no prior project management experience. I would recommend it for anyone who is entering a senior position (especially in the software development industry).

If you're looking for a concise and throughout book in C programming. Don't look further!
I wouldn't recommend it for beginners though (as the title says it's for advanced programmers)! If you're beginner I'd recommend to start with C in 21 days from Sams publishing or similar book.

This may be the best book I have ever bought for any language! Very well written with examples of the features of the C language that you will use everyday. This book assumes that you know the basics of the language. There should be a book like this for every programming language. I especially appreciated the parts on pointers, memory management, and data structures. This book is sure to turn the some-what experienced C programmer into a real pro with good style and good problem analysis skills. It has helped me get passed the basics and move on to the next level with a solid knowledge base and confidence. Buy it if you can find it! Worth every penny and more!

I own hundreds of programming texts and this is by far one of my very favorites, and my absolute favorite book on C.

This book tackles the tougher issues of C programming in great detail, with concise and self-contained examples you can type in directly, compile and run (many books only provide code sections, not entire programs).

Each chapter includes quiz questions that are just difficult enough to challenge the reader, but not so difficult that you will skip over them. I found the quizes to be very useful.

This book is pleasantly slim (although dense). Does anyone really read those 800 page books? I don't. This book will take you a long time, as the content is dense, but you can actually read the whole book and get a sense of completion.

I also enjoyed the author's commentary on C and other programming languages.

I'm really amazed that more people do not own this book.

The title of this fantastic book is misleading since the author's name is John Perry NOT Example. Who's Example? It should have been called "Advanced C Programming by John W. Perry" :)

Also, John Perry shouldn't be confused with Greg Perry, the guy who wrote -among many other books- a similarly entitled beginner's book called "C by Example" in the Que series. Both claim to have been written by Example, but have been written by different programmers who are possibly relatives? Or are totally unrelated, but have same last names and almost identical book titles. strange... ;)

I've got a few C-programming books, but this is the one that I love best of all. It is a gem of a book that resonates with simple, crystal-clear explanations on topics so seemingly difficult to understand in the classic book by Kernighan and Ritchie. I would recommend using these two books together.

What makes this book even more entertaining and readable is that Perry is not afraid to lay on his idiosyncrasies regarding the practice of programming. There is a little hiccup, though, when he recommends the use of gets() and sscanf() together for nearly all input of strings from the terminal: gets() is widely known to be inferior to fgets(), and sscanf() is not discussed in the book at all!

But all in all, a book that deserves full marks.

I have nothing to say except thanks.With the help of this book,my skill of java problem had been improved to a higher level.I will recommend it to my friends who are studying java and also are meeting the problems that I met.

I enjoyed tinkering around with the code examples in the book. Lots of neat ideas and the book filled in the gaps where I was curious about how some things work.

I've never quite been able to figure out why this excellent little book never caught on. Over the years, Herbert Schildt has been one of the most excellent writers on computer science and programming that I have found, and this book is no exception. Both the narrative and the code are excellent.

The only thing that I can figure is that because this book does not target a particular audience - say those interested in enterprise applications for example - that it never really sold well. It is true, Mr. Schildt is all over the map in his applications - with such varied subjects as a recursive descent parser and also a language interpreter from programming language theory, from the world of web applications a download manager and also a web crawler, and from the world of artificial intelligence a problem solver. To me, though, that is part of this book's appeal. However, if you did not have an academic computer science background I can see how you might not be interested in the programming language and AI parts of the book.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to become a better Java programmer and does not mind spending some time looking at applications that might not be of immediate need to them. Especially if you have an academic computer science background and already know something about programming language theory and artificial intelligence, this book should be very interesting and very helpful.

I've buyed the book today ( in spanish ), and, even not being a skilled Java programmer, I've enjoyed the first chapters. It resembles me the excelent work that Herbert Schildt does in Dr. Dobbs Magazine, a lot of years ago ( sorry, Herb ), and when I saw the getToken() method into the code, this inmediatelly remembers me the "Build your own C interpreter" article, which I've loved it. After five years of "boring" network's administration, I've make the decission of to get more involved into Java developement, and take the Herbert and James's book was the right choice to me. By the way, this is not a beginner's book, but with a little effort, and a middle knowledge of Java and OOP, you are on the way. The best money I've spended.

What I liked about this book was the fact that the author not only implemented the back end code, but showed how easy it is to put a quick Swing UI on it. The ability to write a complete, good looking application is often missing in most books. I think this should encourage more people to write quick UIs for the various utilities they code in Java. It encouraged me to go back to some old command line programs I use and throw a quick UI on them. Of course, that's not the point of the book. His intention was to show how Java can solve traditional computer science and IT problems. He succeeds at that.

My only complaints are:

1. the book hasn't been updated to Java SE 5 yet.
2. the use of Swing by the author is incorrect in my opinion. I think there's a few times the author doesn't handle the event dispatch thread correctly. This could send people off in the wrong direction with Swing.
3. the coding style doesn't exactly match the Java Style Guide published by Sun. Some people might like this, but I think it's a problem with many books.
4. The code in the book is not syntax highlighted. Most editors do this quite effectively and I think more books should start doing it.

Handy, Handy, Handy, you have to get this book.

Great images, Great info.

Get it with the Blackberry 8700 Quick source guide

You will not regret it

This the second book that I have used from this author. Both have been a very important in learning and useing all that the Blackberry has to offer it's owner. They are very easy to understand which makes it simple to apply the information.

Dear Martin:

As a healthcare professional and inventor of a product that helps people get eye drops into their eyes without missing, called ezdrops. I have both versions of Blackberry Made Simple. The e-version and the hard copy. My hard copy of Blackberry Made Simple and my Blackberry 8700c has saved me hundreds of man hours by not having to wait to be at a computer for my e mails and text messages. Blackberry Made Simple has proven to be my "bible" and I keep in with me in my brief case for the times that I travel as well as the need to find short cuts on my Blackberry 8700c. quickly. Martin has made the Blackberry device extremely user friendly by making Blackberry Made Simple very easy and fool proof to understand.

If you decide to get a Blackberry device then you MUST get the Blackberry Made Simple hard copy version.

Sincerely,

Lenny Muroff, President
E-Z Drops, Inc.
Port St. Lucie Florida 34985

I'm on my fourth Blackberry and am pretty familiar with the device and its functions. After buying BB Made Simple for Full Keyboard BB's, I was blown away at how much more I could do with my Blackberry. Currently on an 8700 I was able to pick up loads of useful information to really take me to the next level. I HIGHLY recommend this book to ANY full keyboard BB user...you WILL NOT be disappointed. A worthwhile investment!!!

"BlackBerry Made Simple" is a real great help for beginners as well as for power users. I have found most useful hints that allowed me to work faster and better with my blackberry. Best of all: Martin Trautschold even answered my e-mails with additional personal questions very friendly, quickly and precisely!