Hardware Books

I recommend this book to anyone who works with Windows Web Servers. Now that IIS 7.0 is out this book is still a great reference because IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 are so very different. Even if you have never worked with IIS before this is a great book. I have never been disappointed with the Administrator's Pocket Consultant series of books.

I got this book because i need it when i am working in my intern. This book is good for beginners and little above. It is easy to understand and the quality is great. It worth more than it cost.

This is an excellent book! Stanek's Pocket Consultant books go far beyond the typical. He always uses his comprehensive knowledge to weave a fabric that balances the aim of a program with the fiddling details that drive admins crazy. As soon as I had skimmed the IIS book I set it aside and read one section a day. Nothing escapes his eye, every section clears up something that I had always wondered about. Great stuff!

This book is really worth every penny it costs. It is packed with useful information, well written, intelligent, and enjoyable to read. Just the chapters on IIS applications, side by side .NET configurations, and pooling are worth the whole book: it goes through every detail.

The in-depth coverage of every other subject is as accurate as it gets. I particularly appreciated the chapter about customization. But the book goes as far as covering in perfectly understandable terms the metabase, and more. Not to mention the incredibly accurate chapter about optimization.

This is an easy to read book with the detail you would expect from a pocket consultant. The author doesn't waste time with the basic chit-chat and does a good job of laying out the useful material.

Content includes initial setup, backup, performance monitoring/tuning and more advanced features such as registry and metabase settings. Advanced readers will eventually want to search for further information on some of these topics (scripting for example), but this is to be expected. The books leaves you feeling comfortable with what you've learned and with a good feel for where you might want to expand your learning in the future.

Most of my computer books end up getting re-sold or trashed, but I'll be keeping this one on the shelf for myself and others to use in the future.

Blatner and Fraser have the right stuff. This book is based on what photographers need, unlike many of the Photoshop after market manuals. This is the text to use for digital photographers. Inspiring (technically) for the students and the instructor.

As an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop I think I can talk about this book with some soft of knowledge.

Well, this book is awesome. No doubts. From a certain point of view it's even embarassing: I've read things never seen elsewhere, small tips, too small even for the manuals (but sometimes really helpful), and Big concepts explained really well. Every single page of this book hides something useful. This might be not a good thing to say if you're a certified expert, but that's it.

Of course this book is not for everyone: you will get the greatest experience if you're an expert Photoshop user and you work daily with it, as it concentrated on productivity issues and professional tasks. Forget this book if you're a Photoshop enthusiast and you're just looking for pseudo-creative tips&tricks: there are no special effects recipes, no step-by-step tutorials and no bundled clipart CDs.

This is 800 pages of deep Photoshop production techniques. I think no other book, except for Dan Margulis' "Professional Photoshop", can teach such a lot of things to already-expert readers.

First off let say this. If you just beginning to used photoshop cs, this is not the book for you. This book is aimed at the experience user who not only want to know more advanced photoshop techniques but also want to know why photoshop does what it does, in other words how photoshop thinks. Its not an encyclopedia that cover every little feature methodically, instead it covers advanced concepts in themes such as Color management, image manipulation and output. Great book, very informative, like a textbook in some respects. Until you've read it, you dont' really understand photoshop.

This book gives extremely in-depth coverage to topics that cover the gamut from the basic of images and color spaces, through to image editing, filters, typography and finally output. The coverage is very in-depth. This is not a step-by-step book. The idea is to give you a fundamental understanding of the technology and then show it's application in Photoshop. The sections on building selections and using the sharpening features are particular standouts.

If you are the type of person who learns by understanding the fundamentals and not a raw process then it's a tossup between this book and Photoshop CS Artistry. The latter is a little more terse in it's style. This book is more relaxed in style so it's a little easier to follow.

This book is absolutely, no doubt, without question, surely the best book on Photoshop CS out there. It's a real pleasure to read a book by people who actually know what they're talking about. Scott Kelby's "The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers" is an exceptionally fine book if you're just starting with CS and trying to get your photographs under control and don't have time to read about the finer points, but once you've begun to get the hang of it and want not only to know "how," but "why," this is the book you absolutely have to have.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a helpful reference manual for the new I-Photo program. I would recommend this book to anyone new to I-Photo.

Ain't gonna do a bang up job with out it.

Walt

This book has saved me a ton of time and answered a lot of my questions about iPhoto and I am only about a third of the way through the book so far. It is a real joy. Questions that Apple staff in the local Apple store were unable to answer to my satisfaction are amply covered in this book. While the first section on fundamentals of digital photography is more basic than I need, still I got some useful information out of that section. I gained an understanding of the workings of the iPhoto image files - original and modified - and on how iPhoto interfaces with Elements 6.0. I also bought the Missing Manual for Elements 6.0 and find the two albums play well together.

Things that I previously was unable to figure out became clear within a short time thanks to the Missing Manual for iPhoto '08. I feel more confident that I am going to master the photo processing software and spend much less time at the iMac while doing a better job of editing and printing my images. A great value because it translates right into time saved. Much easier than using on line help and tutorials because the manual asks the questions that I was unable to even think to ask - and then proceeds to answer the questions. I am very pleased with this book. I have over 15,000 images in iPhoto now and feel that I will soon be in command of the images and not the other way around.

I have learned so much from this book. The book is very well written and gets to the point in a simple and easy way to follow.

Had to consult the manual only once and found what I wanted. This manual is just about the only option should anyone need any help and prior to any calls to customer service.

My book arrived 2 days earlier than expected.
That night I pretty much scanned it from cover to cover, stopping at the parts that caught my eye.
I bought two books, the other being "How To Build a Car PC". This book far exceeded the other one in knowledge, projects, etc.
My goal is to build the car PC, but I know nothing about car electronics, that's where this book came in, with tips on how to wire it, how to load balance the battery, so the PC doesn't crash on start up, etc.
If you are looking for info on Car PC's and OTHER hacks, this book will stear you in the right direction, if not give you all the info you need.
I loaned it to my neighbor who is a mechanic, and I still haven't gotten it back!!! (Little does he know, he's going to help me now)

This is not a book about how to hack the controllers in your car's engine to make it go fast, burn different fuel mixtures, etc. Just like the title says, it is about car computers-and this means everything from actual onboard computers, to audio and video configurations. Like the other books in the "Hack" series, this is not a long narrative about Car PCs, it is simply a book full of 75 projects arranged by topic. Some of the tamer projects include installing headrest video screens, listening to email on the road once you've rigged up your computer to receive free wi-fi, installing a back-up camera and screen, receiving satellite TV, and rigging a free GPS-based navi-system. Of course, since all this stuff is power-heavy, there's also a bunch of hacks on how to strengthen your car's electrical system. To give you an idea, one of the hacks shows how to install a heavier-duty alternator. Throughout the book there are plenty of instructive diagrams, cross references to other relevant hacks in the book, and lots of links to web addresses where further instruction and freeware can be found.
There are seven chapters in Car PC Hacks, each covering a different way to turn your car into a functioning computer with cupholders. Amazon does not show the complete list of hacks, so I do that here:
Chapter 1. Car Power Basics
1. Understand Car Electrical Systems
2. Prevent Electrical Fires
3. Gauge Your Wires
4. Connect Your Wires
5. Calculate Your Car's Battery Life
6. Upgrade Your Car Battery
7. Add New Power Connectors Throughout Your Car
8. Use a Huge Capacitor to Sustain Power
9. Upgrade Your Car's Alternator
10. Add a Second Car Battery
11. Put Home Power Outlets in Your Car
Chapter 2. Automotive Audio Entertainment
12. Get a Headful About Your Car Audio
13. Install a New Head Unit
14. Get Computer Audio into Your Head Unit
15. Amp Up Your Computer Audio
16. Make a Very Cheap AUX-in
17. Reduce Your Audio System's Noise
18. Control Your iPod with Your Car Stereo Knobs
19. Tune Your PC for Radio Reception
20. Record Radio Shows
21. Listen to Email, Weblogs, and RSS Feeds on the Road
22. Find Out What Was Playing on the Radio
Chapter 3. Automotive Video Entertainment
23. Understand Video Connectors
24. Choose Your Screens
25. Install a Headrest Screen
26. Install a VGA Touchscreen in Your Dashboard
27. Install a Sun Visor Screen
28. Install a Motorized Fold-out Screen
29. Install a Fold-Down Ceiling-Mounted Screen
30. Supersize Your Fold-Down LCD Screen
31. Turn Your Laptop into a Fold-Down or Dashboard Screen
32. Connect a Car PC to Your Factory Screen
33. Install a Rearview Mirror Screen and Camera
34. Boost Your Video Signal for Multiple Screens
35. Customize Each Passenger's Video
36. Tune in TV in the Car
37. Receive Satellite TV While Driving
38. Play DVDs with Your in-Car Computer
39. Put Multi-Channel DVD Surround Sound in Your Car
40. Install a Video Game Console Computer in Your Car
Chapter 4. In-Car Computers
41. Choose an in-Car PC Hardware Platform
42. Power Your Car PC
43. Start Up and Shut Down Your Car PC
44. Reduce the Boot Time of Your in-Car Computer
45. Keep Your Computer on During Engine Cranking
46. Turn On Your Car Computer Before You Start Your Car
47. Boot Your Car Computer on a Schedule
48. Choose an in-Car PC Software Platform
49. Install Windows on a CompactFlash Card
50. Power Your Portable Devices in the Car
51. Install USB Ports in Your Car
52. Build an in-Car PC
53. Build an in-Car Macintosh
54. Install a Mac Mini in Your Car
Chapter 5. Car PC Interface Options
55. Control Your Car PC with a Keyboard and Mouse
56. Control Your Car PC with a Handheld Remote
57. Control Your Car PC with a Touchscreen
58. Car-Enable Clunky Applications
59. Listen to What Your Car Computer Is Saying
60. Control Your Car PC with Voice Recognition
61. Find More Ways to Control Your in-Car Computer
Chapter 6. Wireless Connectivity and in-Car Internet
62. Get Online in Your Car
63. Make Your Mobile Phone Hands-Free with Your Car PC
64. Transfer Data to and from Your Car PC
65. View Real-Time Traffic Data on the Road
66. Videoconference from Your Car
67. Use GPS on Your Car PC
68. Find WiFi Hotspots on the Road
Chapter 7. In-Car Applications
69. Plug into Your Car's Built-in Computer
70. Put a Video Jukebox in Your Car Theater
71. Choose Your in-Car Navigation Software
72. Play Thousands of Games by Emulating Video Game Consoles
73. Use CENTRAFUSE as Your Car PC Frontend
74. Use Neocar Media Center as Your Car PC Frontend
75. Use FrodoPlayer as Your Car PC Frontend

This book gave a good introduction for CarPC newbie.
I'm coming from computer background but have no idea about car electricity, AC/DC, etc. The guide was comprehensive and very clear.

This book has almost everything you need to get started with hacking a car pc. Its great to have.

Car PC Hacks tells you how to install a computer and all sorts of cool tech in your car.

It includes 75 projects. Well, the first few are not really projects, but very helpful explanations of automotive electrical systems. I was most interested in the chapters on how to install LCD screens, how to integrate a computer in your car, and how to power everything from the car battery.

This book is obviously written by people who have installed a lot of computers in their own cars and used them for their own and their families' entertainment. It has just the information I needed to be able to do these projects. Excuse me, I'm going to geek my ride now.

Working with Exchange everyday this is a book I recommend to any IT person wanting to know more about Exchange. This is the best Exchange book I have purchased so far. Don't pass this book up.

I purchased this book as a sys admin working with Exchange Server for the first time, and this book took an already complex product and made it more frustrating. I was looking for a book that would explain the capabilities of Exchange Server and how to configure it to exploit these capabilities. This book seems much more concerned with migration of existing enterprise messaging systems to Exchange and upgrading existing Exchange installations than actually setting up Exchange from scratch.

While I am sure that there is good info in this book that I will eventually use, I would definitely not recommend this book to someone who didn't know quite a bit about Exchange Server to begin with.

This book is giving you hundreds of useful and practical advises about Exchange administration & configuration. Jim Mc Bee knows what he is talking about. Remember there is NO reference book about Exchange but don't miss what is in this one.

I don't usually write reviews, but I had to for this book. The author not only knows his stuff, but is capable of putting his indepth knowledge in a very step 1,2,3 approach, something I have found to be an exception in alot of what I read. One think I have to note, I am the main systems person for a trading firm, and we are required to do message journaling (keeping all communications for three years). I have tried to find information on this topic and how to implement it on many message boards and other forums, as well as in documentation. Being that I did not know the actual term was "journaling" I found this impossible, and therefore, have been backing up every single mailbox, and that does not even "legally" do the trick. This one 2 page section on how to implement this makes this book worth more than money, because we are now legal. To the author, thank you for your help, and I look forward to anymore lit. that you produce!

I picked up this book by accident thinking it would be a good "starter" book. AKA - Having never used exchange server before, I wanted a basic book for setting up accounts, addresses, basic administration, etc. This is not that book at all. If you want a really low level book, look elsewhere. However, I quickly found out Exchange Server is intuative enough that it's easy to figure out the basics all on your own just from playing with it. Aside from that, I am greatly impressed with this book. It's solved every problem I've ran across, and more. The best thirty bucks you'll spend this year.

If you find delight in the optimization of code--and you SHOULD--this is the book for you.

The book contains a great collection of techniques and tricks for highly efficient numerical programming.
Great read.

I have a virtual calculator called the DIY Calculator that accompanies my own book "How Computers Do Math" The Definitive Guide to How Computers Do Math : Featuring the Virtual DIY Calculator.

I recently added a "Conundrums, Puzzles, and Posers" section to the "Programs and Subroutines" page on my DIY Calculator website ([...]) and I've started to build a collection of simple puzzles for people to play with.

One of the first problems I posed was to count the number of ones in the 8-bit accumulator and to present the result as a binary value. I thought I had discovered the best-possible solution, until someone pointed me in the direction of the "Hacker's Delight". (In this context, "Hacker" refers to a hero who is manipulating code; not a nefarious rapscallion who breaks into other people's computer systems.)

I immediately ordered a copy from Amazon, and took delivery just yesterday as I pen these words. This book is fantastic - I kid you not - on the first page of Chapter 2, for example, I discovered at least five or six capriciously clever tricks that blew my solutions out of the water!

I highly recommend this book.

The term "hacker" in this book means someone who enjoys making computers do interesting tricks regardless of whether it turns out to be useful, not someone who is intent on circumventing computer security. Plus, how relevant would those kind of tips be coming from a book that was written in 2002? Don't let the author's definition of a hacker fool you, though - the tricks in this book are very useful.

This book is a collection of small programming tricks on various subjects. The presentation is very informal, and the methods use very basic computer math. You should know your binary number system backwards and forwards before you start this book. Either C or assembly language is used to demonstrate the hacks in code form. When assembly language is used, it is that of a fictitious machine that is representative of RISC computers. That is because the tricks are meant to be platform independent.

After disposing of basic arithmetic operations early in the book, the author turns his attention to more complex math problems such as calculating square roots. His discussion of the subject is both complex and simple. First, he explains Newton's method of computing square roots through a page full of equations that require some effort to follow. Then he gives an implementation that requires fewer than twenty lines of C code. This is followed by another method that is longer and more cryptic but executes faster, by using a binary search algorithm. Whether you are interested in the equations or merely need the C code to do your job, these solutions are efficient and elegant.

Other topics addressed include Gray codes, the Hilbert curve, and prime numbers. Gray codes are a method of arranging the integers from 1 to N in a list so that each number can be visited exactly once by flipping only one bit at a time. The Hilbert curve is a similar idea expressed geometrically: a single continuous curve which, given a space divided into a grid of squares, touches every square exactly once and does not cross itself. In each case, both the mathematical discussion and the code to solve the problem are provided.

The chapter on prime numbers is the most challenging mathematically but also one of the most interesting. It starts with a concise overview of various mathematicians' efforts to devise ways of finding prime numbers. The author is one of those people who periodically become fascinated by some problem and devote themselves to learning more about it and searching for a solution. The chapter ends not with the usual code sample, but instead with an invitation to continue the search for interesting solutions to the problem.

Clearly, the author views this book not as a finished collection, but rather as a snapshot of work in progress. After decades of interest-driven research, the author has amassed a collection of studies big enough to fill a book, and it is fortunate for the rest of us that he has written one.

This book is an absolute essential to the right reader. That right reader is either a low-level coder, a high-level logic designer, or someone who builds tools and libraries for same. In other words, not a lot of people. This is hacking at its bit-level finest, though. If you're among those few, or think you might be, or want a good laugh at the people who are, dig in.

It's good for things like counting the number of 1 bits in a word-length integer (hint: if you count the bits, you're doing it the hard way). It's good for things like fast division by an integer constant, or mod to a constant integer modulus (hint: if you perform division by dividing, you're barking up the wrong tree). If you can look into a 32x32 bit multiplication and see a convolution going on, you're way ahead of the game. The only tricks I know that didn't appear here are A) for purposes that almost no one has or B) for machines that almost no one has.

Warren presents the coolest collection of slimy coding tricks ever collected, with full attention to the number of machine cycles and the compiler-writer's unique needs. I've seen a lot, and this is by far the biggest and coolest collection around. I have two complaints, though, a small one and a really big one. The small one is that the author didn't score a direct bullseye on my somewhat offbeat needs. Well, he never tried to - that's just me griping that he didn't write a different book. The big complaint is that pages, lots of them, just fluttered out of this pricey book and onto the floor. GRRR. This takes nothing away from the content of the book, until some critical page flutters off never to be seen again. Still, if you can keep a rubber band around it, this will be one of the deepest mines of coolness in your uber-geek library.

//wiredweird

My first introduction to binary operators wizardry was in a 1st year, 1st semester course in Digital Systems at the Technion, IIT. I thought it was fun. While I was trying to write a computer program to compute Karnaugh Maps for me, I run into performance problems, and then some binary hackery helped me get back on the horse.

Since then, whenever I come across some binary trick I write it down with a few examples of usage and sometimes with some reasoning why it works.

Then came "Hacker's Delight" and I felt compelled to buy it.

I wasn't disappointed at all! Not only it contained all of the tricks that I have collected, but also it contains a lot more in depth examples of how these tricks can come in handy when trying to squeeze performance from an implementation or save a few more bytes and bits.

The book also gave me a fresh perspective on the implementation of some well known algorithms with the twist of binary arithmetic. This was very enlightening.

I read the "BASICS" chapter (chapter 2) with a single breath of air, and just couldn't leave it down. Not only it was nice to have all these tricks summarized in one book, but also I liked some of the reasoning and the "so-called" proofs.

Remaining chapters were, as I mentioned before, a fresh look for me on known algorithms. This fresh look was through the glasses of binary arithmetic.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who feels comfortable with binary arithmetic and/or computer organization -- even just for the fun of it!

I'd recommend the book to developers who don't necessarily have a sympathy to this topic, but would like a Copy&Paste solution to some problems they have to tackle.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and I will probably reference it from time to time.

This is a benchmark book for interactive design. It separates the design process into information design, interactive design and presentation design. Those who head the process and focus on information design tasks at the beginning of an interactive project will find that costs are lower.

Information design changes are easiest at the beginning of a project and create large cost problems at the end.

If you have proceeded with good information design then interactive design and costs are much less difficult and less expensive.

Finally if you have made good information design and interactive design decisions, then you have a vast arrays of how to present the final product. It is at this stage the costs the highest with graphic designers, video producers, web developers, programmers and so on.

Read the book and memorize the process.

The book promised a lot based on previous readers' reviews and the publishing house's reputation but I was disappointed with its contents. The information is well presented but too simplistic. Lacking any further elaboration this book is of little use if you have some experience in the field of interactive design. A good brain-storming session at home would come up with the same findings of this book.

I have had this book for 4+ years. I loaned it to a friend once who didn't return it, so I bough another one.

Among the dozens of books I own and read on usability or project management, etc. this one is fantastic - a real stand-out.

The one drawback is that it's not as contemporary/up-to-the-minute as newer books. [shrug]

This is nicely organized, introduces important concepts and explains them in plain english. I used it as a textbook for a multimedia class and it was well received.

You will not find fancy tricks and designs, but you will get a good overview of multimedia, interface design and project management. It is 'outdated' so it is not suitable for experts but its information is excellent for an intro class, especially for people with little graphics experience.

For once, someone makes the distinction between information design, interaction design and presentation design. This book was invaluable in helping our division more clearly define our process for product development.

Jack Herrington's "Podcasting Hacks" (O'Reilly) is an excellent collection of tips, tricks, and explanations about making, publishing, and enjoying podcasts.

Although the book is primarily aimed at people who are creating podcasts, it also contains some info on the tools and techniques for finding and listening to them.

The O'Reilly "Hacks" books are structured as a series of specific projects, "hacks", that you can implement, but most every hack also includes a valuable explanation of the technology or expertise it uses.

The hacks in this book fall into both technical and non-tech categories. There's plenty on microphones, mixers and mp3 files. But also a lot on interviewing, blogging and getting publicity for your 'cast.

The book's first Chapter is the only one specifically for podcast listeners. It talks about sites and directories for finding the podcasts that are of interest to you. It also describes systems for downloading them, and the software for listening. Although the chapter contains much good info, it seems a bit out of place to me, in a book which is mostly of interest to people already looking to produce podcasts.

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are "Starting Out", "Quality Sound", and "Formats". They dive into the gear and technology of recording and producing your podcasts.

Chapter 5 "Interviewing", and 7 "Publicity", tell about how to collect valuable and useful content, and how to get the word out to your potential audience.

Chapter 6 "Blogging" covers how to use a blog to publicize and distribute your podcast. It covers the most popular blogging systems like Movable Type, WordPress, Drupal and others. It covers using an existing blog, or setting up a new one. Also creating and managing the all-important RSS feed for your podcast. It also talks about internet hosting services which specialize in providing online storage and bandwidth for podcasts, which, because they are larger-sized files, can be a burden on traditional hosting arrangements.

Chapters 8 & 9, "Basic Editing" and "Advanced Audio", expand upon the post-production and audio tech material already covered. And Chapter 10 "On the Go" talks about recording podcasts out in the field.

"Podcasting Hacks" was first published in 2005, before the boom in video on the net, so it is short on info for video-podcasters. Though much of the discussion on interviewing, distribution, publicity, and hosting are directly applicable to video 'casts. Chapter 10 "Videoblogging" touches briefly on what was then an infant medium.

All in all, "Podcasting Hacks" a very useful and informative book, for both new and experienced podcasters.

Introduction
From the title, my impression was that this book would provide several specific technically-advanced strategies to maximize efficiency and enjoyment of podcasts. The strategies covered wouldn't necessarily be comprehensive, but rather serve as additional specialized tools one could add to the toolkit. Contrary to my impression, I was pleasantly surprised at the range of topics covered. I assumed from the term "hacks" in the title that the book's focus was going to be on adapting software and hardware for easier podcasting creation and consumption. However, there was plenty of focus on soft-skills as well, like methods of hacking your voice to sound better in a recorded format, or how to hack an experience you've had into a well-told and interesting story for a podcast.

Things I Liked

The book's foreward, believe it or not, contains the most succinct and accurate description of what podcasting is -- and isn't -- that I've read anywhere. I am mistrustful when a technology is advertised as "the hot new thing that everyone is doing!" because it usually seems to be a solution in search of a problem. That the foreward took a realistic tone made me favorably anticipate what would come in the rest of the book. The other thing that set this book apart was its range of contributors. There are hacks supplied by professional newscasters, popular podcasters, technologists of all stripes, and developers of podcasting tools and applications. These wide-ranging perspectives allowed the author to cover everything from writing Perl scripts to understanding basic copyright law to setting up a home studio to marketing your podcast - all in all, having this book is like getting to pick the brains of the top people doing podcasting, and having concise written documentation upon which to refer.

Things I Liked Not So Much

A minor point, but as someone who does not use Macs, PCs AND Linux boxes on a daily basis, I really only care about stuff available for the platform I work on. But the format of the book didn't allow me to easily locate the information relevant to me. When the book discussed software and hardware options, it wasn't clear which platform a hack was for until late into the description. A small addition to the hack title, like "Mac Only", would have remedied this.

In addition, the organization of the hacks was surprising and a little frustrating at times. For example,
Hack #2 is writing a perl script to re-assemble feeds of your choosing from other sites as a customized rebroadcast. As I was reading the hack, I thought about several questions one might be expected to have, such as "What is perl?", "What do I need to utilize this script?", and "How can I tell if this script will work with my web server"? These issues weren't covered until Hack #7. In another example, chapter 3 explores how to get quality sound; , the author uses terms like "condenser microphones" and "phantom power" early on, which he doesn't really explain until later on in the chapter when he discusses the various types of microphones.

Do you know how to listen to a podcast and produce one of your own? If you don't, this outstanding book is for you! Author Jack Herrington, has written a great book about how to find great podcasts and subscribe to them without filling your hard disk.

Herrington begins by showing you how to listen to podcasts through your browser and on a variety of different devices. Next, the author takes you through the basic hardware and software setup required to make high-quality podcasts. Then, he covers in depth how to pick the right audio hardware for your podcast; as well as, how to reduce noise to get that elusive clean sound. The author continues by covering the formats of various shows, and provides examples of formats; as well as, case studies of many popular podcasts. In addition, you'll also learn how to interview people, and how to edit the interviews. The author also concentrates on the mechanics of posting your podcasts to the Internet. Next, the author shows you how to market your podcast, make some money off it, and work with the podcasting community. Then, you will learn the basics of audio editing, what applications are available, and how to understand and use audio effects and filters. The author continues by taking things a step further and shows you how to build your own home studio, integrate audio feedback, add sound effects, and more. In addition, the author shows you how to take your show on the road with the hacks. Finally, he covers the basics of videoblogging and shows you how to create a teleprompter to give your videoblogs a professional feel.

So, if you want to get the best sound with the lowest noise, read this most excellent book. Herrington, has gone in great detail in this book, to help you produce a podcast that people will want to listen to, because of what you say and do.

As usual, Oreilly's combination of technical tips and tricks with straightforward implementation is excellent. I hadn't tried any of the Hacks series yet, and found that I'm thoroughly enjoying it. They are an excellent way to quickly get important pieces of information, while still comprehensively covering the topic.

The only downside is that it may not be a great book for those without some computer skills. But, if you know computers and don't know Podcasting, this is an excellent find.

Disclosure: my podcast is mentioned in his book. I find myself reaching for this book nearly every episode I create. I thought I was doing fine with my little show before Jack came out with this book. When it was published, I was shocked at how much he had gathered, and how much I had to learn! Jack has covered a very broad area, and yet kept a balance so that you feel like every page can be applied to your podcast. I find the guidance he gives on everything from equipment to environmental noise, to show format, to legal music use to be relevant to each episode I create. I continue to go back and find new tips to improve my show. I highly recommend it.

Bottom line - great how-to book. I am NOT in any way, shape, or form, a computer geek. Technology is not my friend, and nothing about machinery is inuitive to me. I am also a no-nonsence kinda guy. In this particular case, I want to edit, not spend my time READING about how to edit. So this book is GREAT! (Wouldn't know if it's the best 'cause I'm completely dependent on doing what it says to do so I have no way to compare it to other resources.) The layout is straightforward - topics are categorized and independant from each other. Like a cookbook. Simply go to the instructions on how to do a particular thing, and there you go! The book uses paragraph format in the beginning of each topic/chapter to explain the "why's" of the upcoming topic; like a comprehensive overview. (What's the purpose and point of doing "_____".) Then when it comes to the "how-tos", each subtopic/activity converts to bullet-points. (Click A, then do B, then press C.) The book also includes side notes and hints along with illustrations of what you should be seeing on the screen at that particular stage. Wonderful! Efficient!

This book is based on Avid Express Pro as of 2004 and will serve you well as a reference text. It is well-indexed and has useful cross-references in the text.

This book is very helpful for new beginners learning AXP. It is very detailed and to the point. A must have.

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pinuccio

I am a beginner with Avid and was daunted by all the different and options available to me. Monohan's book was just what I needed. I am currently giong through the book from A to Z, which gives me an overview of all the options and work-methods the program has. Even though I allready had set up my workspace, this book gave me some interesting tips. Even though I had allready developed a workflow for my previous projects, I learned some new options by reading this book.

Interestingly, serving as a guide from a to Z is not where Monohan excells. It should be used as an index to all the available options from this program. Want to know how to find those audio-peaklevels? How to get rid of that nested alpha-channel? Or you want to remember that trick in lassoing to trim mode? Use the index or the table of contents and you'll find what you're looking for in no time.

Great value for its price!