Data Communications Books

Aristotle is alive and he is norwegian! Finally here is the lost book of Poetics. If you are one of the rare race of people that like to think about videogames rather than play with them, you will love this book. Maybe many scholars won't pay Aarseth much attention, but time will speak by itself. This is the most intelligent, visionary and interesting book available about interactive fiction/narrative/drama/or-whatever-name-you-like.

... what else is necessary to say. This book will spur so many thoughts and ideas that you will be reading it for ever after. It is a must for any serious hypertext/cybertext scholar.

The word `ergodic' is very familiar in mathematics and physics, where in the former it designates measure-preserving transformations and in the latter an equivalence between time and space averages. To see the term appear in literary analysis is therefore interesting, and instigates curiosity as to its role there. The author of this book is the first one to refer to `ergodic literature' and he therefore gives the reader insight into the subject that perhaps cannot be obtained anywhere else. As a whole the book is very interesting, even though at times it might appear that the author is skating to close to the `deconstructive' school of literary criticism.

When one reads a book in the "normal" way one stares at the cover, reads the title, opens the book, and then begins reading at the first page and continues reading until the book is finished. The content of the book usually does not require the reader to perform any particular actions other the mere act of turning the pages and reading. But in the Internet age it is clear that texts or books (i.e. "hypertext") can require that the reader become more "active". For example, the reader may have to click on hyperlinks, input words or information to the story or text, or even interact with story by using user interfaces so that the story can take on a different path or even have a different ending.

To require the `reader' to become actively involved is the key strategy of ergodic literature. As the author states, a `nontrivial' effort is required by the reader to get through an ergodic text. This is to be contrasted with a nonergodic literature where no such effort is needed. In ergodic literature, something else must be occurring outside the confines of the thought processes of the reader. This is what the author refers to as the `extranoematic' responsibilities on the part of readers when they `interact' with ergodic literature.

So other than `hypertext', are there any other examples of ergodic literature in history? Interestingly, the author points to the ancient Chinese text I Ching, The Book of Changes, as an example, due to the use of randomization to combine the texts of the `hexagrams.' The author gives a few other examples, all of them of which should be familiar to the experienced reader. All of these examples require that the `reader' participate in some way with the text or the play. For one example, the result of court trial is dependent on the `vote' of the reader.

Of course, this book itself is not an example of ergodic literature since it presents a case for it in an organized `linear' fashion, and readers must respect this linear order if they are to fathom the arguments of words of the author. However when reading the book one can see the value and challenge of ergodic literature. A computer game for example, could be viewed as a full-fledged novel. Literary purists may be cringe at this prospect, but to this reviewer it signifies a fascinating development, and one that could evolve into a genre that depends on advanced technology. And along these same lines, the ability of the `reader' to change the "flow" of the text has interesting ramifications for the field of artificial intelligence. A story that can adapt to the input of the reader, or even perhaps to learn from it and then rewrite it if necessary is an exciting prospect. Ergodic literature will no doubt expand in its ramifications and complexity in the twenty-first century, due mostly to the more exotic technologies that will be developed alongside of it.

This book, written by several of data broadcast specification authors, is The Definitive Work on the ATSC Data Broadcast specification.

If you are an implementer of data broadcasting, you need exactly two things: a copy of the specification and a copy of this book.

I highly recommend this book to all those who develop or maintain data broadcasting systems.

The good point is that it is not at all a replication of the specification (though a true copy of the A/90 spec is added as an appendix). The concepts are clear, progressive and sufficiently illustrated.

Chapter 3 alone tells you most you need to know about MPEG-2 Systems standard. I gained extra insight from it even after I had studied the original 13818-1 spec.

I found this book to be a great resource for the engineering and design fundamentals that relate to the question "how is all that data formatted and organized in digital television broadcasting?" The MPEG-2 Systems Standard is one of the foundations of digital television. If you're interested in how MPEG-2 really works at the system level, you'll find this book an excellent resource. The chapter on MPEG Transport by itself is worth the price of the book, but it also does a great job explaining another arcane MPEG-2 Standard, Digital Storage Media Command and Control (DSM-CC). It turns out DSM-CC is very useful in data broadcasting, but if you were to pick up the IEC standard itself and try to make sense of it, you'd find it very challenging.

Even though broadcasters have not started transmitting data along with digital television, this book sets the framework for understanding how it will be done. It's written by those experts in the field who actually designed the standard, so you know the information is accurate.

This is a very good book! It delves into the details right from the start. I recommend this book to anyone in the data communications field. It can be a bit dry and complex, but the material is complete and after two or so perusals is easy to understand. This book was used in my graduate course for data communications. Excellent book!

Excellent book. I have read first edition (1992) and now it is one of my best reference at the university where I teach.

I am going to buy this last edition to keep updated.

I have been using Fred Halsall's book in my computer engineering degree and it has been very useful. This is a dense, fat book that will provide lots of information. It covers the basics, from the essential theory about digital transmission, protocol basics and implementation methods, legacy and wireless LANs, HS LANs, transparent and source routing bridges, packet switching and frame relay networks/protocols, internetworking architectures, protocols and routing algorithms, multiservice broadband networks, TCP/IP and OSI application protocols, data encryption and network security, network management structures like SNMP and CMIP and other stuff. I can complain about some of the excessive use of acronyms that leave some areas of the book much harder to read. I'm talking about hundreds of acronyms here.

Also, Fred's writing is sometimes a bit too dry, sometimes forgetting to give the reader a general idea about the subject, instead of just jumping into all the details. This is something that is better done in other books, especially Andrew Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks". Tanenbaum also shares his sense of humour, which, in a dense volume about telecommunications, ends up refreshing the user. Also, Tanenbaum's dares to share his opinion sometimes, something Halsall seldom does, giving us only the facts and nothing more. But if it's the facts you want, he's good at it.

I found most of the book clear; the section about Huffman data compression for instance, was excellent. I remember having some trouble with the Viterbi EC algorithm, which isn't very well explained. The book also lacks information about some more modern technologies like GSM.

In general, this is a very competent title, and a great resource to the student or the computer professional. Be sure to check Andrew S. Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks", since you might prefer it to this title, or, the perfect choice, get both. (I have them both and some subjects are a lot better in one book, and others are a lot better in the other title).

I found this book to be very thorough and useful for ADC and DAC. I was able to use it as a reference to learn and later explain the details of different types of ADC/DAC systems. I'd recommend having this on your shelf. It's a pretty quick and detailed reference and I think it's the best money I've spent in the last 5 or so reference books I bought.

I bought this book after the High Speed Analog seminar given by Analog Devices. Several chapters show modern types of data converters, interfacing to the analog signal sources and to the digital circuitry. It is a must for engineers who want not only to use the data conversion products but also understand what is going on there. I would highly recommend this book also to teachers dealing with this subject as an excellent source of information on state of art data converters presently available on the market.
Daniel Valuch, RF engineer, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland.

At last! A modern book on data conversion worthy to succeed our 1986 landmark Analog-Digital Conversion Handbook (3rd edition). The Data Conversion Handbook is based on the book, Analog-Digital Conversion, a comprehensive set of notes for a recent Analog Devices seminar series on data converters.

In a digital world, A/D and D/A conversion is essential to translate between analog real-world physical variables and the abstract 1s and 0s of digital processing. The book's nine chapter titles offer a hint of its breadth, as well as its orientation to practical designing with and use of converters: Data-converter history; Fundamentals of sampled-data systems; Data-converter architectures; Data-converter process technology; Testing data converters; Interfacing to data converters; Data-converter support circuits; Data-converter applications; and Hardware design techniques.

The first chapter, data-converter history, starts with the early 18th-century background in hydraulic water-metering systems in the Ottoman empire, then-when electricity came into use-from the 19th century telegraph era through the 1950s. The chapter then covers progress-decade-by-decade-in technology, circuitry, and applications of converters during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Where relevant, historical contexts are also noted in some of the later chapters.

The second chapter, fundamentals of sampled-data systems, sets the stage for hardware design-discussing coding and quantizing, sampling theory, data-converter ac errors, general data-converter specifications, and definitions of specifications.

Chapter 3, data-converter architectures, discusses DAC architectures, ADC architectures, and sigma-delta converters. Although it concentrates on the most popular designs, it seeks not to neglect any significant approach. For example, among DACs it discusses the Kelvin divider (string DACs), thermometer (fully decoded DACs), binary-weighted DACs, R-2R DACs, segmented DACs, oversampling interpolating DACs, multiplying DACs, intentionally nonlinear DACs, counting pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) DACs, cyclic serial DACs, and "other low-distortion architectures"-and naturally, the sigma-delta converter section includes sigma-delta DACs.

The fourth chapter covers a wide range of data-converter process technologies, from the early vacuum-tube converters, through solid-state modular and hybrid converters, to bipolar, complementary-bipolar (CB), and CMOS integrated-circuit processes. Also covered are thin-film resistor and calibration processes; and there is a section on smart partitioning: optimizing performance, space, and cost by intelligent choice of process partitioning within a package.

Chapter 5 provides in-depth discussions of a wide variety of testing techniques for static and dynamic performance characteristics of DACs and ADCs. The following chapter, interfacing to data converters, has a major section devoted to analog interface considerations in driving ADC inputs. Other sections in this chapter include ADC and DAC digital interfaces (and related issues), buffering DAC analog outputs, data-converter voltage references, and sampling-clock generation.

Chapter 7, data-converter support circuits, discusses in depth such important analog auxiliary circuits as voltage references; low-dropout (LDO) linear regulator circuits; analog-, digital-, and video switches (including cross-point types) and multiplexers; and sample (track)-and-hold circuits.

The foregoing chapters, some 60% of the book, amount to a virtual appetizer for the banquet of tutorial material in the last two chapters: data-converter applications (Chapter 8) and hardware design techniques (Chapter 9). These two chapters amount to a practical course on design solutions and techniques that can enrich the portfolio of any designer, from the technician and recent graduate to the hardened systems engineer.

The wide-ranging coverage in Chapter 8 is apportioned among eight topics: precision measurement and sensor conditioning, multichannel data-acquisition systems, digital potentiometers, digital audio, digital video and display electronics, software radio and IF sampling, direct digital synthesis, and precision analog microcontrollers.

Finally, Chapter 9's 185 pages are in themselves essentially a textbook for the hardware designer. Its eight topical areas are labeled: passive components, pc-board design issues, analog power-supply systems, overvoltage protection, thermal management, EMI/RFI considerations, low-voltage logic interfacing, and breadboarding & prototyping. Chapter 9 is followed by a comprehensive subject index and an indexed listing of Analog Devices products mentioned in the book.

This book will be a valuable addition to the library of the student, the practicing circuit design engineer and technician, and anyone else who needs a good practical grasp of what is needed for a successful marriage between the analog and digital worlds.




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[i] Full disclosure: Dan Sheingold also wrote a Foreword for the book (page xvii).

I am a Computer Science Engineer, This book is an excellent entry level source for data networks. It is easy to read and follow. The writer implicitly knows the subject very well and is able to convey the knowledge in a way it is not difficult for non-technical readers. It provides useful in formation for technical readers as well. I will recommend this book to anyone who is interested in knowing about data networks from scratch.

This is a very good overview book with enough details to get the beginner going. Takes one from zero networking knowledge to the point where they can understand many aspects of data networking, and leaves them at a point where additional research can be self-directed.

Many of the callers on our tech support hotline would benefit from this one.

If you're already a year or two into networking, this isn't for you... but for a rank beginner, it's great.

A very informative book for beginners and ones like myself that need a refresher course now and again. This was very easy to understand and I have recommended it to my staff to help in their training. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn from the ground up. Five stars!!!!!

Being the broad-scope work that it is, this book has hit the bulls-eye in terms of coverage. While there have been other books on IAs recently, this one covers all aspects of IAs.

Doing so, it has more positives than negatives; but of course this depends on whether you want an overview of the field, or an Intelligent Agent (IA) in "C" programming reference manual. It is more of the former than the latter.

It does cover a lot of ground and gives one a detailed taste for what artificial intelligence(AI), and IA's (Intelligent Agents) created from AI technologies are, and more importantly, what they *could* be. That is, if all the suggestions in this book were followed, we might soon have really 'intelligent' software emerging from various quarters (like the Internet or Intranets).

It concentrates on explaining the essentials of the cognitive and computer sciences that are relevant to IA design and creation, especially the considerations that seem to have contributed to 'intelligence' in the natural world (like our brains). I liked all the various definitions of intelligence!

It goes into the details of various architectural approaches to designing systems of interacting, or collaborating components. I found the material on the necessity of common agent languages (that is, languages in which the agents speak to each other) to be particularly enlightening.

Also especially useful was all the information about autonomy, agent mobility, standards that agents can make use of (like IIOP), and what languages and environments might be particularly suited to IA implementation. There were a couple of subjects that seem, in retrospect, out of place (like OpenDoc). But given that the coverage is about certain architectural and implementation concepts of those subjects that were important to IAs, and that it was only a few pages, this was a minor issue with me.

The book explains, at a surface level, the common soft-computing technologies like ANNs, genetic computing and fuzzy logi! c, as well as more traditional approaches like expert systems. It gives examples of real software that you can buy and use to incorporate these techniques into agents. For example, the book provides a good synopsis of Cyc, which can be used by agents to incorporate 'common sense' reasoning capabilities.

I did not expect it, so I was not surprised that this was not a programming manual. There are a couple of other books on IAs that concentrate on particular kinds of relatively simple agents in particular languages. Yet, to be honest, in lieu of lots of specific code and examples of actual agents, it provides a lot of pointers to other researchers' works in companies and academic settings.

This book is much more than what has appeared on the market thus far. Its breadth is actually pretty amazing considering its length of around 400 pages. I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to either gain a good grounding in intelligent agent design and development issues, or to expand one's purview of how intelligence could be enabled within today's and tomorrow's distributed computer systems.

For those of you interested in reading a little history, some present implementations and the possibilities the future holds...this book is for you. If you require a more design-oriented book you might look elsewhere. I absolutely loved this book!!

Intelligente Agenten sind längst nicht mehr nur ein Thema für abgedrehte Software-Entwickler. Microsoft ist in den Markt der Agent Software Produkte eingestiegen und die Regale der Buchhandlungen füllen sich mit Abhandlungen zu diesem Themenkomplex. Inhalt: Michael Kapnik und Jay Johnson beschreiben in Ihrem Buch die Architektur, Technologie und Anwendungen für Intelligente Agenten in ver-teilten Umgebungen. Die Autoren thematisieren nahezu alle Aspekte dieser Technologie. Künstliche Intelligenz in Experten Systemen, Fuzzy Logik, Objektorien-tierung und Architekturen von Agenten bilden den ersten Teil des Buches. Der Vergleich na-türlicher und künstlicher Intelligenz beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob Computer die Natur des Gehirns nachbilden können. Die Industriestan-dards CORBA, OpenDoc, OLE/ActiveX und DCE werden als Basis für die Infrastruktur intelli-genter Agenten kurz erleutert. Für Tools und Entwicklungsumgebungen geben die Autoren neben der theoretischen Beschreibung auch einen Marktüberblick über verfügbare Produkte und weiterführende Literatur zu den Tei-laspekten. Im Anschluß werden Design- und Sicher-heitspekte beschrieben. Dies umfaßt die Bereiche Anforderungsanalyse, Plattform, Umgebung und Paradigmen für verteilte Um-gebungen, Client/Server und Mobilität. Daneben werden Methoden zur Fehlerbe-handlung, digitale Signaturen und Konfigurationen durch die Endanwender dar-gestellt. Nachdem die Grundlagen für die Entwicklung der Agenten gelegt sind, beschäftigt sich das Kapitel "Developing Intelligent Agents NOW" mit Sprachen und Entwicklungsumgebungen, wie Java, Smalltalk und Telescript. Die Einsatzgebiete intelligenter Agenten sind vielfältig. Viele Anwender setzen sie bereits in Standard-Office-Produkten oder E-Mail-Anwendungen ein. Daneben unterstützen in-telligente Agenten ihre Anwender im Netzwerk-Management, bei der Suche im WWW, bei der Filterung von Daten, beim Kommunikations-management und vielen anderen Bereichen. Der Ausblick in die Zukunft intelligenter Agen-ten bi! ldet den Abschluß des Buches. Neben weiteren Anwendungsgebieten für Agenten in Datenbanken, im Netzwerkmanagement, in Suchmaschinen und im Privatbereich wird auch auf mögliche Gefahren durch spionierende oder destruktiv agierende Agenten hingewie-sen. Beurteilung: Sätze, wie "Mein Computer fühlt sich alleine, weil ich es bin" zeigen, daß es sich nicht um eine theoretische Abhandlung über die Agen-ten-Technologie handelt. Immer wieder stellen die Autoren einen praktischen Bezug her oder wagen einen Blick in die Zukunft. Es gibt je-doch auch Kapitel, die nicht so leicht zu lesen sind. Dies ergibt sich aus der Komplexität der behandelten Themen. Denn die Entwicklung intelligenter Agenten in verteilten Umgebungen ist nicht trivial. Das Buch liefert das "Handwerkszeug" für die Entwicklung verteilter Systeme mit Hilfe intelli-genter Agenten. Es schneidet alle relevanten Themen an, ohne dabei zu theoretisch zu wer-den. Aufgrund des Umfangs der behandelten Themen sind die einzelnen Technologien nicht erschöpfend dargestellt. Wer detaillierte In-formationen benötigt, kann jedoch auf weiterführende Literatur, auf die in dem Buch hingewiesen wird, zurückgreifen.

I am using this book for my academic needs, and it tells all relevant subjects in a straightforward way, without messing up with any unnecessary mathematical extravaganza. I advise to everybody who wants a good headstart in this field.

"Digital Audio" is the book to have for anyone interested in using digital audio for ANY purpose. It is real world, practical information that will enable you to get the most out of your digital audio requirements and help you keep it leading edge. It is also simply a fun, interesting, techno read. Two Thumbs Up !!

This book, "Digital Audio" is absolutely wonderful. This has to be the best money Iýve EVER spent!

I am a Musician and a Teacher. The topics covered so well are the very things I have struggled to learn - on my own- since 1985. This book covers it ALL!! Thorough,comprehensive, easy-to-understand and well presented with humor and REAL knowledge of the various elements of digital music today (AND yesterday). Everything one needs to know to create first rate recording projects is right here!

I recommend this book to anyone who needs to know how to create music for digital distribution - be it on CD, the Internet, in a Multimedia presentation - wherever. It is an awesome distillation of the knowledge and experience of a Master.

I only wish I'd had it ten years ago!

I have been hearing about this e-Business stuff and associated acronynms for a while now: B2B, B2C, e-Commerce, EDI, m-Commerce..on and on. No book had so far explained to me what it all means to a DBA like me. This book finally explain in clear and simple terms what all the hoopla is about.

The author uses simple and clear language in explaining the issues that really matter to DBAs....both technical and non-technical aspects of the e-Business environment are covered in this book.

Thank you Meghraj for the wonderful explanation and clearing the myths.

This book is an excellent source of information for Oracle DBAs that work in an e-Business environment. I have read a number of books on e-Business and Oracle but this book does a superb job in showing what e-Business means to an Oracle DBA like me.
I especially liked the chapters on availability and security. Each page in those chapters contains very good stuff. In my company, high availability and security is a must and the techniques shown in the book are a lifesaver. e.g. encryption techniques, implementing redundancy, security loop holes and so on.

I have been an Oracle DBA for over 10 years now and am in the process of transitioning from a "traditional" DBA to an "internet" DBA. This book has helped me enormously in understanding the various issues and solutions related to using Oracle with the Web. Each chapter of the book is packed with valuable information. The author does a great job in explaining the issues involved in such projects and also provides real-world tips and techniques for achieving availability, scalability, security and performance in e-Businesses using Oracle. I highly recommend this book as a good read and ready reference for Oracle DBAs, Developers and even Project Managers of Web-based projects and e-Business initiatives that make use of Oracle

I've had this book for several years now and I refer to it constantly to keep me fresh. It is undoubtedly one of the must-have guides for all html newcomers! It is precise and concise with plenty of on-screen illus. to help you along. Buy it!

One day my uncle bought me this for my birthday. I was completely new to webpublishing and had never built a (good) website before in my life. Jonah Neugass explains the material so well a complete beginner like myself could become a master website builder in days. Thanks Jonah and keep up the goodwork!

I bought this book because I flipped through it in the bookstore and found it to have illustrations unlike all of the other HTML books. It explains step-by-step, picture-by-picture how to design and publish web pages. A must buy for beginners. It is very clear and very easy to understand.

Even if you've been graphing for decades or are a scientific or statistical sophisticate, this book is more valuable than you'd guess. You may know some stuff to help make your graphing better, but I bet there are many more principles, features, and techniques you simply never thought of. This book has these. But for even more incisive visualizations, you should get also Cleveland's "Visualizing Data". You'll need both books really. (There's not much overlap.) Even though making use of graphical perception principles increases the power of your graphs (the main topic of "Elements of Graphing Data"), there are even more incisive graph types you need to learn about; only a couple of these are in "Elements"; the others are in "Visualizing Data". After digesting Cleveland's two books, you will be a master data-behaviour elucidator. Once in a great while you may need the old statistical inference paradigm (test-statistics & p-values), but much more often you will be so glad you have the power of Cleveland's visualization paradigm to use instead. But again, you will need both "Elements of Graphing Data" and "Visualizing Data". Start with "Elements" though. The book reads easily, is interesting and has a bonus for those into perceptual psychology. A neato tidbit: the author's research results on graphical perception were given in part as graphs -- leading to the nifty "the medium is the message" thing. No matter what aspect of "Elements" you look at, it is simply marvelous -- all substance, and several points (not just a single point for a whole book like Tufte did in his book).

William Cleveland clearly describes how data can be presented to great effect. His description of visual perception spell out the "how to's" of graphing data. While many graphing programs are available in today's high technology environment, Cleveland's descriptions of how data can be presented into graphical format is enlightening. The book provides great examples of both superior and poor graphing presentation, focusing on how to encode graphs to allow for straightforward data analysis.

"The Elements of Graphiing Data" is a must for those who graph scientific data.

Tufte shows you why it's important to do graphs well. Cleveland shows you _how_.

The last quarter of the book details experiments in human visual perception that rank how well we detect certain things: relative angles not on a common baseline (i.e. pie charts) justly come out at the bottom of the list.

One of a only handful of books I've labelled "JXH ONLY". If I loan you my copy, know that you are special.