Data Communications Books

I really like this book! I bought the 4th edition (1956) at a used book store and was anxious to get the latest version. I purchased it in 2001 when it came out, and have been very pleased with it. I would recommend this book to anyone involved in electronics.

This is hands down the best reference book ever published for electrical/electronics/communications engineers. There is an abundance of articles on virtually any topic you can think of. This reference book is not written for the mathematical engineer who needs reference books loaded with tables and equations. This is a reference book for the rest of us engineers who need to learn the basics of a particular technology without having to re-learn engineering mathematics. This book is an absolute must for every electrical engineer. Once you get the book, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it

I'm Forest Engennering and i work with Remote Sensing, so i would like to purchase a books of this.

The book by John Richards and Xiuping Jia is one of the best introductory books in the field of remote sensing. This work may be used as a textbook in a one semester course. This book is well organized, technically correct, with a reasonable level of mathematics for those new in the field.

Book Review

Rules of Thumb for Business Writers By Diana Roberts Wienbroer, Elaine Hughes, Jay Silverman; McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, 212.904.5951, NY 10121; www.books.mcgraw-hill.com; ISBN 0-07-145575-7; May 2005; 223 pages

Reviewed by G.A. "Andy" Marken, Marken Communications Inc., andy@markencom.com



We may be slightly over enthusiastic about Rules of Thumb but this could be as enduring as Cutup & Center's Effective Public Relations book that is now in its unbelievable eighth edition.

But unlike Cutup & Center, the three authors cut a much wider swath across one of the most widely covered used and abused business tools...clear, concise and effective business writing. Perhaps it is too much to hope for but the ready availability and ease of use of email has only accelerated the use and acceptance of poorly constructed sentences, stilted and acronym laden correspondence, embarrassing grammatical errors and a toleration of poor spelling and punctuation.

Rules of Thumb isn't a textbook that should be read for classwork and then put in your professional library to gather dust. This is a workbook. One that you should read a couple of times and put into practice. It should be a part of your mentoring and staff training program to help ensure that PR people properly use a vital tool in their daily practice...writing. The discipline and guidelines the authors provide will also spill over into your verbal communications activities.

The book will probably never become a standard for use in business classes or a basic requirement in MBA programs and that's a pity because there is a decreasing number of assistants whose job it is to clean up and improve business correspondence for managers and executives.

Most of us today have our own computer(s), a low-cost printer sitting on the credenza and Internet access. As a result it is too easy for us to write our own letters, our own business proposals, our own management reports, our own editorial and management emails and even prepare our own PowerPoint presentations. All without the use of standard software tools like spell and grammar checkers.

Rules of Thumb is an educational, reminder and reference tool that seems to have been written just to help people avoid embarrassing grammar, punctuation, style and spelling mistakes. "Facts" will probably get in the way of every public relations practitioner and his or her boss picking up, reading and using the book - "I know how to speak and write good so I don't need a fundamental book on business writing!"

But the brutally honest fact is that we all need to work at writing more effective letters, emails, proposals, newsletters, resumes, articles and yes even news releases. The authors also give a wide range of work-saving shortcuts you can put to work immediately on using Word, PowerPoint and even writing for websites and blogs.

The authors have compiled an excellent set of bulleted lists of easy-to-read and remember guidelines. They have painstakingly developed hundreds of practical guidelines that make it easy for you to clearly understand the concepts they present.

Now in its second edition, the authors provide a large volume of insightful information and guidelines to help you improve the quality of your written work as well as how to write your correspondence more quickly and with better results. As if all of this isn't enough, the authors have also done a lot of research for you and included a valuable resource directory to enable you to more quickly and effectively find the information you want and need on the web.

Nothing in Rules of Thumb will make you suddenly say "Viola!!!" It won't be an epiphany to open the floodgate of your creative writing. But it will be a book you'll want to read a few times and revisit as a refresher course again and again.

If nothing else think of it as a working guide to help you find a bigger, better and higher paying job somewhere else...or get the promotion you've been angling for.

That should motivate you to take a serious look at Rules of Thumb....

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Rules for Bus. Writers is an excellent quick reference to keep handy at your desk. Plenty of material for beginners as well as advanced writers. I liked the quick tips and good resources. I'd rate it "concise and helpful plus very easy to use" - it's a short and to the point guide. You don't have to wade through long passages of chitchat and padding to get the help you need. Highly recommend it!

The ideas behind Wave-WP, a high-level network-centric programming language presented in this book, are fresh, radical and thought-provoking. The author offers a completely original view on what distributed computing ought to be about. As someone interested in the design of next-generation programming models that make it easy for people to build, manage and control large-scale dynamic network systems, I found Peter Sapaty's work a very worthwhile read.

"Ruling Distributed Dynamic Worlds" describes the World Processing language and the Wave-WP model for implementing large distributed systems. The book will be of interest to anyone concerned with distributed computation, the software of robotic systems and application spaces such as network management and security and other crisis management scenarios.
Wave-WP is an extension of the Wave model of distributed processing expounded in the author's 1999 text "Mobile Processing in Distributed and Open Environments." His new text extends the model to embrace "spatial programming", using a "virtual world" abstraction whose content is assembled using the distributed Knowledge Network concept of the earlier Wave paradigm. Throughout the text, he supplies numerous examples of how Wave-WP interacts with the physical world, in such missions as multi-robot firefighting and hospital maintenance. More traditional applications of distributed processing such as network management are also discussed, as are security applications.
The Wave-WP paradigm superficially resembles the mobile agent paradigm. The author argues that it is qualitatively different to the latter in that mobile agent solutions anticipate emergent behaviour from the specified actions of the mobule agents, whereas Wave-WP operates at a higher level (the "implementation layer"). This allows some complex application behaviour to be generated from remarkably simple and concise Wave-WP code. A number of such examples are presented in the text.
The book includes a detailed description of the World Processing language and of the Wave-WP interpreter, and of the various worlds inhabited by the paradigm (the virtual world, the execution world, the physical world and the "united" world). The range of worlds occupied is (in this reviewer's opinion) the key distinction between Wave-WP and its predecessor Wave architecture.
Readers persuaded of the power of Wave-WP will doubtless be itching to try it out for themselves. Unfortunately, it was not yet available as a product when the book was published (as mentioned by the author in his preface) although earlier versions of Wave have been made available to the research community. Despite this limitation (which may well have been addressed by the time you read this review), the book is a provocative read for anyone interested in innovations in distributed systems.

M Bijaoui takes a balanced approach to both theory and practice in this book. A good half share of the book describes the underlying theory of scaling systems, but without diving too deeply in complex systems theory. On the other hand, it actually describes (presumably from real world experiences) the practicalities of scaling up Exchange.

Its pitch is just about right: not so deep that you'd get the bends, but just deep enough that you can get by with a snorkel.

This topic is clearly right in Mr. Bijaoui's sweet spot and he delivers with a home run. If you are looking to build a big, honkin' server, but also want to know all of the gotchas along the way, this book is for you.

Just what I was looking for...

I really congratulate the author on maintaining this edition fresh. I actually come from an IT Systems and apps area.When I had to take the deep dive into Telecom and specially into SS7 I was suggested Russels 2nd edition and thats all that I needed to jump in.Simple, crisp and great images.

With the 5th edition I just moved into 3 major telco projects in NGN and the book was just what I needed.

Cheers -
anirudha Sharma
Caracas Venezuela.

A lot of work went into this new edition, with lots of new material, as well as confirmation that previous chapters were correct. I have talked with hundreds of readers who have used previous editions of SS7 in their daily jobs, and have confirmed that not only is the text correct, but it has saved them lots of time normally spent trying to find information in the standards themselves.
But I know there needs to be more emphasis on wireless, especially since most of my readers are from wireless operators. So you will find a lot of new information in this edition focusing on wireless.
So what's new this edition? Much more detail on SIGTRAN, a new chapter on MAP, and a lot more information on new technologies coming up such as IMS. So check it out, and I hope you enjoy this new edition.
Travis Russell

A very good book , worth reading to understand the fundamental concepts of the subject

A very good book , worth reading to understand the fundamental concepts of the subject

I am not a librarian, but I found this book to be an excellent survey of tecnologies with relevance to anyone with a need to more effectively utilize the internet.

I have spent the last year fairly bewildered by Web 2.0; what it means and how it's used. This tiny book cleared the fog considerably, and the examples of how the various technologies and web features are exploited in the library world are probably more informative and stimulating than if they'd been directed at my specific problems.

If I had a criticism, it would only be "book versus web", as the web is a river and a book is an island. Printing it 'fixes' it in time, and the highly dynamic web will outrun the content of this book in a few years, maybe sooner. Meantime, its succint, direct and practical nature recommend it as a map out of the bewildering tangle of what's out there. Now is the time to buy it.

SOCIAL SOFTWARE IN LIBRARIES: BUILDING COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNITY ONLINE is for any college-level collection catering to library science students as well as practicing librarians: it surveys social software, which lets libraries interact online with the communities they serve. Chapters provide librarians with the information needed to implement blogs, RSS, wikis and other types of social networking systems, even down to podcasting and IM. Tips include how to assess, implement and use such software successfully, offering real-world scenarios and examples all along the way. An outstanding, practical reference.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book is THE complete guide to building an intranet. Killer examples and techniques.

Very impressive compendium of Intranet information and the latest HTML techniques

Cutting the cord is awesome, jam-packed with information on this new wirless world of ours. Whether looking at wireless for your office, home or on-the-road needs, this book provides you with all you need to know regarding options and how to get connected...plus a whole lot more. I recommend it highly!

Everything you wanted to know about what's going on in the wireless arena. The author did a nice job explaining the products and services and how they work. Jam-packed with helpful information. A good read for those in the industry as well as consumers interested in researching future purchases.