Web Books

From how digital commerce and democracy affects taxation, privacy and free speech to legal platforms for protecting and regulating property rights and documents online, Netpolicy.com provides a social examination of how the internet's capabilities are creating new public agendas for change. An important title for any social issues class.

This book is both scholarly and entertaining, for it describes the history, influence, and possible future of today's most fascinating tool, the Net, and does so through the lens of a person whose career was focused first on telecommunications and later on computers. Just as these have come together in the Internet and elsewhere, so does this story, which for Simon began in 1966. The Net itself is now over a quarter-century old, but for its first two decades was largely ignored by the public. Since 1995, however, an exponential growth in popular and commercial interest has created a similar, and continuing, explosion of the Net. It is difficult to think of any earlier technological development whose adoption occurred so rapidly or with such ease. And unlike most high-tech inventions, the Net developed organically, independent of any master plan or architecure, absent of security considerations or privacy concerns, hardly shaped at all by economic factors. Sharing was, and remains, its goal. Today, however, the Net impacts our everyday life and has become an enabler for business to expand its markets. It is hence now entrusted with private information of individuals and secret proprietary data of business, whose security may be essential to commercial survival. Ubiquitous as it is, the Net cries out for public, and private, policies that address such troublesome issues as equitable access,taxation, intellectual property rights, content regulation, privacy, security, first-amendment rights, and many others.

NetPolicy.Com defines the Net and its impacts and discusses "the bearable lightness of the digital world," the convergence not only within electronics, but the mega-convergence of businesses, e.g., financial services, commerce, and industry. It identifies difficult policy issues and their legal framework and suggests appropriate roles for the public and private sectors. Despite the importance of the Net to business and government, its essential issues have most to do with its potential effects on humankind.

We are reminded of the 1998 celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, largely drawn from the French Declaration of Human Rights and our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, quoting from the former document the freedom to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Would that today's policy makers have the prescience of the author of those words!

NetPolicy.Com is recommended for readers with intellectual curiosity, anyone interested in modern technology, observers of contemporary customs, any person who surfs the Net or sends e-mail, indeed for all responsible citizens who wish to learn more about this new world in which we live, interdependent on each other and literally interconnected to everyone else.

Finally, NetPolicy.Com's technical title disguises a book that is an easy and important read.

I was very happy with my purchase. I received the item fast and for more than half the price that was offered to me from the school's vendor. I will recommend ordering from amazon for everything. I was very pleased.

This is by far my favorite english book I've ever had! The content is organized so well that it's incredibly easy to find whatever you're looking for. I didn't even have to really read anything because I could so easily find what I was looking for. Very nice! The language is simple, concise, not inflated, and straight to the point. Very easy to understand.

I purchased this book when it first came out. He gave the name of the company he did this for in his ad for the book at the time. I simply typed in "cell phone" into each search engine and his site was number 1,2 or 3 on ALL of them. It's a great book and since then I've spoken with him numerous times on the phone he's also a consultant...all's I'll say is this guy KNOWS the inside dope on marketing...HIGHLY recommended.

I read through Nothing But 'Net this morning and must say that Michael Campbell has done an outstanding job of explaining the state of the art in Internet promotion techniques, tools and resources.

I think it is one of the best "How To" books on Internet Marketing techniques that I've seen. I highly recommend it.

What is beneficial to you as a writer, what do you need to make your career in the writing world possible? A guide to bring you a step closer to reaching your dreams.
If you are starting out as a new writer, whether you want to get into or do write poetry, e-books, articles, even audio books, or have been writing for awhile and want a little help getting published and recognized. This practical guide is for you.

Concise explanations of definitions, detailed examples of the different types of publishers, book reviewers, editors, literary agents, etc. Followed by names of companies and a brief description of what formats they want and the genres they are interested in. It also includes links to their websites, e-mail addresses and who to contact, what they offer and prices to get you started on the road to a successful writing career.

A lot of research and patience has gone into this book; well arranged and methodical, easy to read and written in plain English. Although many of the website links provided were unfortunately not connecting, do not exist or the domain name had expired. It would be hard to keep a guide like this updated as so many websites do not always survive, but otherwise it has very useful information.

For those of us who do not know or understand the writing world language and where to start, this book is a great first step on your road to becoming a successful writer. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is trying to start a career in the writing world.

As an author as well as freelancer, this reader of Ms. Jackson's book has provided invaluable information on the how-to's and wheres to gain access to almost any question a writer could ask. Organized in easy to read, well organized and informative sections and topics, Ms. Jackson offers her experience and know how to both novice and veteran writers. An added bonus is her easy, friendly manner in approaching her topics, and the friendly way in which she offers advice. I felt like I was getting advice from an old friend.

Jeanette's book outlines several tips you can apply right away. She makes generating online profits easy, affordable, and fun! Use this book to generate increased traffic to your website and more content for your web visitors to read.

Jeanette Cates' Online $uccess Tactics: 101 Ways To Build Your Small Business is a simple, straight forward, no-nonsense, "user friendly" collection of tips, tricks, and techniques designed to harness the power of the World Wide Web for low-cost promotion, visibility, sales, service and support, and more. Each page lists a different helpful idea, offering an excellent starter spark for go-getting businesses everywhere. Written for the entrepreneur and business owner, Online $uccess Tactics will prove a practical, accessible, immediately applicable "how to" manual that will swiftly improve and enhance a company's performance where it really counts -- the bottom line.

The book is well-written, particularly helpful for people they have little or no experience in Open Source. It saves time giving advice and proposing GNU products for various web-services. The most important for me was Part III, where the subject becomes more demanding and difficult : Scalability, Availability, Site-Management and Load-Balancing. Though I have not test them yet, the proposed solutions seem applicable, sound and reasonable and integrate the endeavour for a complete Open Source environment.

I'm a little biased because I hooked Thomas up with the SAMs editors, my brother was a collaborator on his earlier book, and I helped out with this one, but I only confess this to put my biases on the table: I would not have done any of that if I didn't think Thomas Schenk was up to the task, and he exceeded my wildest dreams as an opensource writer.

This is not just another book about configuring webservers. Yes, it includes how to configure the systems, how to cluster servers and all that hot jazz, but far more importantly, this book asks you to face those hard questions that make the difference between a webserver and a business webserver. This is a book from someone who knows what he's talking about; Tom was the server master behind Deja.com and currently consults for Penguin Computing. He knows your server is not a mere capital asset; a successful web venture depends on vitality and communications as much as it depends on throughput and uptime.

This is also not just another book about Linux and Apache; Tom goes to the heart of the business case for opensource on mission critical systems. There are example applications of many alternative server, eBusiness and content management packages, but these are brandnames that will change with time: The essential lessons of opensource that emerge from the many case studies will continue to be valuable long after all these names have vanished from memory.

Written much like the math textbooks of your youth (complete with exercises at the end of each section), Oracle Web Application Programming for Pl/SQL Developers is a godsend for those of us who knew you could write web apps using PL/SQL, but lacked the actual syntax to do so. Book can be used as either a reference or a tutorial guide, given that it is both comprehensive and chock full of sample code. Companion website is handy so you can copy and paste. Bottom line, if you want your browser to talk to your database and make it do neat tricks, this book will serve you well.

I found this book very helpful as it explains the basics in a very clear, easy to understand language and has lots of examples. It's a high quality interactive manual: first the concepts are described, then I was presented with exercises, which is very good as most of us learn through practice, experince. The answers and clarifications which are given after the exercises unit helped me monitor my understanding and in the end I had the complete application and a great feeling of achievement.

Excellent! Usually I am half way through a novel before I want to read rather than peruse. Not this time! It brings to mind a Dean Koontz novel, Dark Rivers of the Heart, but saturated with a twisting and turning conspiracy that sucks you in keeps you in an anxious state of suspense. A pragmatic fictional story that forces you stop and consider the world around you and question the fine-line ethics associated with our society's technological advancements--not many novelists can evoke this type of thinking in a reader.

Wow! What an incredible read, right up with the ranks of Tom Clancy, but with tecno descriptions more easy to follow for the average reader or non-computer expert. This is the type of book that is difficult to put down or to leave to casual intermittent reading. A classic example of "fiction" being more close to reality than the average person might like to think. It is a fitting sequal to Orwellean 1984. A must read for the trusting embracers of the computer age.

This book is just wonderful! It is the story of a female peregrine falcon as she migrates from Alaska to Argentina, an 8,000 mile journey. The areas the falcon visits along the way are all beautifully illustrated - the mountains of Alaska and the Yukon, the autumn hills of British Columbia, a skyscraper in Seattle, the deserts of Utah and New Mexico, and seven other places as well. A map in the front of the book shows the route the peregrine follows and the different resting areas she visits along the way. The book is written as a story, but includes lots of interesting facts that are woven beautifully into the narrative. I highly recommend this book!

I found this book to be an excellent read-along book for 5-9 year olds. Behind the lovely writing style and beautiful pictures is a plot that invites lots of questions from kids about many different subjects. (And that's the way they learn!) The book follows the migration of peregrine falcons from the arctic, through the tropics and all the way to the sub-antarctic of Argentina. It was obviously well researched, yet it is not stuffy - it has heart! Highly recommended.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.

PHYSICS--Aristotle addresses the "why" questions. Aetia= causes, there are 4 causes. Only 1 cause actually sounds what like we call a cause today. A better translation is "explanation." 4 ways to explanations. Arche=origins/principles, something that is 1st, or rule, or, commanding, or beginning. Thus 1st thought that leads us to understand something and how we proceed. Begin how we think and rule or govern how we think. Phusis= "nature," like physics. He understands nature differently than we do today. For Aristotle the planets orbits never change so not part of nature. Everything below the moon, "lunar," is nature. Thus everything below lunar is not perfect and goes through change. Phusis root= to grow or bloom. Thus, emerging like birth. This term has to do with movement and change. Also connected to "coming to light." Also, connected to "being."

Physics (nature) is an arche (rule) of motion and change. Concept of physics (nature) has to do with motion and change. Paramedes denies change. Aristotle takes umbrage with this. Plato says change is a deficient condition; Aristotle is against both men's notion of change.
IMPORTANT--Aristotle talks about how we talk about how we talk about change all the time. Aristotle says no such things as "being" itself. For Aristotle there is change we always talk about it.

Potentiality and actuality- 2 terms that dominate Aristotle's thinking. Change is potentiality to actuality. Potentiality is a "not yet." He criticizes premises of philosophers for denying or denigrating change. His physics is his thought to explain change. Ousia can't mean something unchanging, it is always a changing phenomena. For Aristotle and the Greeks the "world" has no beginning or end it is always here. No God or creator. Big and small are opposites, but are only conceptual. Small things become big Aristotle sees this. Our language is the guide here. The fact that there is change doesn't mean it is chaotic, you plant a seed, and it grows from small to big, this is normal change.

3 senses Aristotle uses phusis or nature. IMPORTANT- 1. "Always or for the most part." 2. Telos-end, purposes. 3. Movement is self-generated toward something. When a seed falls to the ground it grows and moves towards growing. Contrast Phusis with techne="produce something by humans." Both have to do with change and movement. 1 is self-moving, 1 is moved by us. Trees are not brought into being by themselves; beds out of trees are made by us. What is a bed? For Aristotle it has no nature or physics, it can have an essence. Everything other than Techne "things of production" are physics, nature. It is natural that humans have productive capacity and skills. Techne and physics are distinguished to understand change. Aristotle is important in philosophy and science because he uses language of science. He sees that change is internal within phusis in their own nature, not from myth or storytelling.

His phenomenology says our primary access to things is the "whole" like a dog, once we analyze them we can break them down. This is different from the premises of philosophers who believed in "inarticulate wholes." This is a dramatic difference from Platonists and atomists ideas. Atomist says all things made up of individual stuff like atoms. Aristotle is against atomist doesn't accept describing atoms as real. Like atomist the "whole" or dog is real for him. He isn't a Darwinist because the earth is always the way it was, is and will be. He talks about elements earth, fire, water, air.

IMPORTANT- For Aristotle, "being" of a thing comes 1st, knowledge 2nd. He says knowledge comes to rest in the soul. The soul is calmed by knowledge. When the soul or the mind comes to rest this is out of a natural turbulence of the mind. When he says "by nature" it is intrinsic in us we are by nature turbulent like children, this is part of us. Knowledge achieves calming it emerges out of the turbulence like "wonder."

Techne and physics are not opposites they are distinct different ways to explain movement. Both parts of our world can illuminate each other. He doesn't have idea of a creator God but understands if their were nature it would come by way of god. He says nature is self-manifesting. Techne completes nature (physics) Art doesn't quite imitate nature but talking about shapes like a bed or cave like a house. More like impersonates nature. Craft or Techne our natural capacity to make things, we are elated by being able to craft we do have to be taught to produce things. When we build houses, we are completing something nature can't do. Today, modern science rejects idea "nature" has a purpose. Thus, Aristotle doesn't see physics, nature and techne craft as that different.

Aitia=Causes better definition is "explanation."

1. Material Cause, answers question "out of what"
2. Formal Cause, answers question "into what"
3. Efficient Cause, answers question "from what"
4. Final Cause, answers question "for what, or toward what"

Qua= Latin for "as." We understand something by questions we ask. He uses ordinary language. This arms us with information to look at whatever phenomena by deduction. Fill in the 4 causes and categories and then you have knowledge.

IMPORTANT- Most important is #2 the Formal cause. Efficient and Final cause fall under it. Usually he uses artifacts crafted by man to explain this. Example of a house:

1.Material Cause, answers question "out of what" Wood
2.Formal Cause, answers question "into what" A certain shape of house
3.Efficient Cause, answers question "from what" the builder
4.Final Cause, answers question "for what, or toward what" to provide shelter

Things of phusis can be explained by 4 causes a little tricky. Form isn't just shape for Aristotle.
He uses different works for form, like logos = ordering, or pattern, or structure, in this case, organization in living things it is richer our bodies are our being cause. A corpse is no longer organized for a functioning body. Same with material cause. Aristotle distinguishes between wood or real matter and less tangible, he uses idea of material cause thus doesn't just mean stuff like matter. Thus, in his book Politics, what is the material of the polis? The citizens. Material is just a way to explain it. The word matter works like "What subject matter are you taking"? Thus, Aristotle uses matter in the rich and varied linguistic way. Thus, he provides guides and 4 categories and causes to gain knowledge. He thinks his approach is an improvement over Plato and pre-Socratics like materialists.

IMPORTANT- Everything is what it is in combination of matter and form in the world except God. There is a difference between dogs and beds, thus he is against the atomists. If you don't know what a cake is ahead of time you don't ever get to the molecular structure to get you there. To talk about matter without form is to miss something. Any 4 causes alone doesn't work, all together give an apt account of how things are. Modern science breaks with him on #4 the Final cause; scientists say this doesn't exist in nature.

For Aristotle, if it is evident and real in nature it must be real. The Telos shouldn't be understood as "push pull." Understanding can shift based on different issues and topics so Aristotle is a "pluralist." Never think of telos, or end, or purpose as "design." Not all forms of telos are "conscious design" for Aristotle. There is no intelligent design of nature for Aristotle. (No God). He rejects it, no beginning, or end of nature. However, he believes nature has purposeful elements to it, so it is mind like. Therefore, when we think purposefully we are not violating nature. We are rational animals. There is no mind before or behind nature. For Aristotle idea of telos is built into nature. Aristotle's idea of an unmoved, mover is archaic. He believes that movement in nature must ultimately come to stop, can't go to infinity, thus unmoved mover. This is his idea of God. Doesn't mean first cause or creator but more a "draw" not a "push" like draw of a lover. Thus, he doesn't believe in universal laws of motion. This is a limitation in his philosophy.

IMPORTANT-Basic distinction between matter and form, form has efficient and final cause as subsets. Matter and form are separable in analysis but not in reality. Two sides of the same coin, always present together. You can't have a sculpture without matter like clay. Aristotle criticizes Plato and others for delinking form and matter. Form isn't just shape, form is structure and organization. Corpse has same shape as a human but Aristotle says, "The form is gone in the corpse" so form is more than shape. Matter is unknowable; form gives us something that we can gain knowledge with, example a hunk of clay vs. a bowl.

Bottom line of modern physics and science is math, Newton, Kant, etc. said this. Thus, H2O is proportions of elements. A "towards which" is not a phenomena to examine. Here he is saying math is legitimate form of knowledge but it is not primary way or status of understanding how things are. Natural motion has nothing to do with line and math, etc. for Aristotle. One can't explain natural motion with math. We never come across geometric shapes in nature. Form is natural phenomena but different from mathematical form. Thus, you can't understand nature by math, as primary knowledge only secondary. For Plato, math is real for Aristotle they only help explain nature.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

I found this translation easier to read than other translations of Aristotle. It is much easier to unpack and follow, only the content needs to be wrestled with, which is a project in and of itself. It includes the Becker numbers, which makes it easier to have a discussion with a group.