Software Books

I'm working on a teaching moduel for an independent study in GIS and I purchased this book to help me understand how GIS can be used in the Health field. IT'S OUTSTANDING! For any GIS instructor out there, you should check out this book, because the chapter assignments are brilliant from a teaching stand point. They force the user to really explore how GIS is used in the world today and look beyond the simple tutorial commands to introduce you to the software. The assignments make you explore the internet for data and learn how GIS is being used elsewhere. By far the best GIS book I've used sofar.

This tutorial is written in clear and concise language. It introduces basic GIS operations in a logical stepwise progression which is ultimately a comprehensive basic course. The tutorial is very hands-on and interactive and it makes very good use of screenshots and other illustrations. It is a very effective learning tool in the field of public health GIS.

Although there is a very minimal incompatibility of this book if used with ArcGIS 9.2. (the software given with the book is 9.1 version), this book is still categorized as an excellent book for the Elementary GIS learner. This book is very helpful for Public Health professionals in learning how to create, analyze, display and inform the geographic health information which will be well complemented with health statistical facts and figures. The curricullum, the guidance, and the exercises given are well prepared that allows me to want to explore the endothelial layer other than just the epithelial layer of this knowledge.

I would recommend this book as a starting point of the journey to engage and marry GIS knowledge and practice with its excitements.

College-level collections strong in GIS mapping and health will want GIS Tutorial for Health: one of the few texts to apply GIS software to health profession research and objectives. Health care policy and planning within the GIS system leads students to design maps to investigate and analyze patterns of health, injuries, environmental hazards and more. The workbook helps students learn and maintain GIS software skills with specific application for the health sciences, going beyond your usual GIS focus on general geographic and population mapping information to address the specifics of the health industry. It comes with two CDs: one offers data to juxtapose with the book's exercises and case study examples; the other includes a 180-day trial of ArcGis9.1. The combination makes it a top pick for college-level health profession GIS course assignments.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I was impressed with the authors for their clear and lucid style, assembling and relating diverse topics in a simplistic view, ranging from computer science to philosophy, to present a brilliant holistic view of GIS technical infrastructure.

This book fills a very important gap in the GIS literature. There are many good introductory book about GIS (try Burrough, for example), but they have been mostly written having a geographer or an earth scientist as their prospective reader. By contrast, Worboys writes for the computer engineer or programmer who wants to understand how a GIS really works inside. The author is a leading researcher on the field, and the book is clearly and concisely written. If you are a computer professional working in the GIS area, you'll find this book invaluable.

Having read many books of the kind I can state with confidence that this one is the best introductory book on the topic. The authors claim that the book is best-suited to people approaching GISs with a computer-science perspective and/or background and this should be taken into consideration by all prospective buyers. However, the book should still be a most valuable resource to readers from other backgrounds, as it remains the most comprehensive in its domain, and is very readable thanks to the lucid writing style of the authors.

Each chapter except the first, which serves as a general introduction, deals with a particular sub-discipline within GIS. Chapter 2 describes the basics of databases.
Chapter 3 clarifies important topological and metric concepts.
Chapter 4 enters the area of field vs. object data models.
Chapter 5 deals with raster and vector structures as well as with computational geometry and geometric algorithms.
Chapter 6 moves even closer to the physical computer level and discusses indexes (access structures) and trees.
Chapter 7 is about architectures (distributed, homogeneous, heterogeneous systems).
Chapter 8 talks about GIS-interfaces.
Until that point, the book has a very logical structure with each chapter being the logical extension of the next.
Chapters 9 and 10 exist only in this second edition and provide some brief excursions into the topics of handling uncertainty and time in GIS respectively. They go into somewhat less detail than the previous chapters, yet are very well written.

Remember that this book is introductory, hence dont expect to learn the intricate details of topics such as databases and computational geometry. The authors manage however, to strike a fine balance between the amount of concepts and methods being presented and the degree of detail to which each of them is analysed. Therefore the book retains its clear introductory character while maintaining a very high informational content. In addition, the authors have done a fantastic job at compiling relevant bibliographies at the end of each chapter where the readers may pursue additional details should they wish to. The graphics and figures are also self-explanatory and do a fine job at complementing the text. Verbosity and typos are scarce if at all existent.

I recommend this book as the most comprehensive overview of, and a very good reference source for, GISs. It will be invaluable not only for newbies but also for mid to hi-level experts who wish to consolidate their knowledge or have a trusted reference. Undoubtedly, an indispensable resource in the library of anyone interested in geographic information systems.

I'm not your average GISer. I have a BS in Mathematics and worked for 15 years as a software developer. This book was a required text for the class in Advanced Vector GIS that was part of my MS in GIS. I currently use it as a reference as I work on my PhD in pure GIScience.

This book covers GIS data structures and databases in a way that a Computer Scientist would appreciate. It covers GIS algorithms in a way that an Applied Mathmetician would like. It covers GIS topology in a way that a Pure Mathmetician could learn from. It covers uncertainty in a way that a Statistician would enjoy.

If you are, say a graduate student in mathematics or computer science and want to understand what all the GIS hype is about, you've found a great, concise volume that covers an intense amount of information. If you are a geographer who needs to formalize some language concerning theory and methods for a publication, then this is a good start.

If you are looking for something like "how to delineate a watershed in ArcView 9", skip it and look elsewhere.

Global Outsourcing with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System is an excellent book and informational resource. The format is easy to follow, intuitive, and simplifies gaining an understanding of both the concept of global outsourcing as well as the software.

Note: This review gives more importance to the processes than the other obvious benefits.

Who should read this book?
- On-site coordinators
- Off-shore managers
- Process managers/Product Managers
- Key people involved in distributed development/outsourcing.

Why this book is useful?
- This book can be used as a process guidance for outsourcing/distributed environment.
- This book clearly identifies the day to day issues of a distributed development environment and gives options on how to mitigate the risks.
- Explains all the possible options on how efficiently VSTS can be used.
- This is very useful not only for the teams using VSTS 2005, but also for any distributed development team as this clearly gives an idea of what processes should be in place. VSTS is an all-in-one tool which helps in making the life easier.
- For companies which do not prefer to use VSTS can also leverage from the processes clearly mentioned in the book and can achieve similar efficiency by using different free tools available in the market.
- The book has shown how to customize the VSTS to suit the specific need along with the code which is very handy and reduces a lot of effort in customizing.
- More importantly, this book is very handy and easily understood by techies and non-techies alike. Non-techies can understand the processes without getting into any technical details.
- Addresses the issues faced by bigger and smaller companies and bigger or smaller teams.

Jamil Azher's GLOBAL OUTSOURCING WITH MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO 2005 TEAM SYSTEM tells how to manage outsourced projects using Visual Studio 2005, which engages developers, project managers and team leads alike. GLOBAL OUTSOURCING takes it examples from the real world also: it examines typical outsource management issues, applications, and problem-solving in a fine technical overview programmers will relish.

This book is indeed about global outsourcing, but it deals with the outsourcing of software not athletic shoes or kitchen ware. Specifically, as you might guess from the title, it concentrates on the use of Microsoft's Team System version of Visual Studio 2005. Other Microsoft products such as Project and Excel from the Office suite are also shown as a part of an integrated management system.

There is little question tht outsourcing is here to stay. The cost savings are simply to great to be ignored. A programmer with a few years of experience in the US is paid an average of $55K, in India $15K, and in China $9K.

There is also no question that outsourcing brings its own problems in terms of management, control and especially communications. Many of these problems are specifically discussed in the book, and it goes on to show that the Microsoft tools can assist in these areas. The tools will not, of course, guarantee success but they may help to make a project a success.

Got the book two years ago while working as an adm. tech for a small company. I was familiar with vi but decided this one was more customizable. Got the latest copy just to update for the job.

This book was issued to me while working as a consultant for Northern Telecom (Nortel.) They standardized on this editor, as it was the most efficient for their environment. The above description of the back cover pretty much tells it all. Mine is an earlier edition but the picture is still the same. The book comes with a Lay Flat Binding. There is a Short Content and several page Table of Contents. Also the GNU Manifesto, Glossary, Key (Character) Index, Command and Function Index, Variable Index and Concept Index. You seldom need to go outside this reference Manual.

The book covers the complete use of Emacs (except programming Lisp extensions).
The text is most of the time clear and consise. All you will read is useful information. Moreover you often find anwsers to your questions as if the author has anticipated it (probably the experience of the 15 previous editions).
What could be better is the conceptual description of Emacs: What are the variables attached to each buffer, how the major/minor modes affects the variables ... finally what make the state of Emacs at a given time.
As a conclusion: We would like many more books of this quality.

This book is the only reference you need for Emacs v21. It is written by Richard Stallman, the original author of Emacs and about a gazillion other brilliant pieces of software, not to mention he is the founder of the GNU project and the FSF. The book is basically packed with useful information. It has a good table of contents and several good indexes (Key (Character) index, Command and function index, variable index and concept index). Some of the things you find are not compatable with earlier versions of emacs, and they are not always noted, but hopefully you can download the latest version anyways.

It covers the basics like opening/editting/saving files, getting online help, cutting/copying/pasting, searching/replacing, and simeltaneously working on multiple documents. Most of these simple things are also helpfully summarized on a tear-out reference card in the back. The book, however, goes into great, great detail, providing you with the massive power that Emacs (the one editor to rule them all) has.

Some other parts of the book that I found useful were the chapters covering backup files, version control (w/ RCS), major modes (i.e., modes in which the behavior of Emacs changes to suit the type of buffer you are working on. E.g., automatic indentation and highlighting in C-mode), integrated compiling with gcc and debugging with gdb, and dired (the file system browser with primative commands for deleting and other simple things). I would have been (and was) seriously lost trying to custimize Emacs without this book.

Other topics covered that I haven't yet mentioned are registers, international character support, tag tables, merging files, email and web browsing capabilities, the calender/diaries, and many other odds and ends.
What this book does not cover is the vast Emacs Lisp system. That is why I'm back on Amazon today to check out the Lisp Reference Manual. Since the Lisp manual is 900+ pages, and this book is already about 600 pages, it's easy to see why they seperated these two. My only gripe with this book is that it has terrible binding :( Oh well, it still easily merits 5 stars.

Hi from Down Under,

I had been casting around for some months for a user friendly New Testament Greek programme, a sort of 'Teach Yourself Greek - for fools and the gramatically ignorant' was what I was after. The Parsons CD 'Greek Tutor: Interactive Learning System' has more than adequately met my wish. It is a clear, FUN (believe it or not) interactive programme which - with much built in encouragement - leads one step by step without making the mistakes of other programmes I have tried, of either expecting prior knowledge or amazing intellegence. I can't recommend this programme more highly - Greek is hard work but this way it is also addictive. Buy and enjoy!

rosalene@clear.net.nz

If I could, I would give this software seven stars. I doubted that I would be able to learn Biblical Greek (they must say "it is Greek to me" for a reason after all). However, after just about an hour I know the alphabet and can make out several Greek words.

Greek Tutor was easy to install on my computer, it was done in about 45 seconds. It works great with XP, there are one or two very minor problems, but those do not impact the operation of the software.

Before today I had no background with Greek and was not sure I could learn it. However, I believe that using this program I will be able to read my Greek New Testament in a much shorter period of time than I thought possible.

Learning a new language is always difficult. Learning a language that is no longer in common use is even more so. But Parson's Greek tutor reduces the effort with fun interactive exercises tied to both of the most popular Biblical Greek books. In a matter of hours I was able to pick up my Greek NT and start reading many passages in their original language. Quickly getting into reading and memorizing scripture in the original is an encouragement to read and learn more. A great resource perfect for the layman wishing to learn a little Greek or the seminary student looking for a little extra help on the side.

This tutorial from Parson's is excellent. If you need to learn Biblical Greek this is a good starting point. Note that it is ONLY a starting point but a very good one at that. Of course nothing beats a live classroom environment for learning a new language but this tutorial comes close. The key is practicing and reviewing every lesson till you are sick and tired of the stuff. I've found that extensive practice is the only way that one can retain the stuff specially if one is 61 years young.

Another benefit of this tutorial is that after learing it I read the corresponding topics in Mounce's "Basics Of Biblical Greek Grammar" AND do the exercises in "Basics Of Biblical Greek Grammar Workbook". Just doing the tutorial may get you going as far as reading simple passages but for a deeper facility with the language one has to use Mounce or a similar text.

All in all this is an excellent product to get you started on a fairly difficult but immensely rewarding journey.

Vladimir Silva's GRID COMPUTING FOR DEVELOPERS tells of a promising new technology, exploring the evolution of Grid computing from early distributed computing ideas to its modern environment. From de facto standards for Grid computing to development guides for Grid services, commodity Grid kits for Java and Perl, and source code samples, A DEVELOPER'S GUIDE TO GRID COMPUTING is perfet for computer scientists who want a head start on the next generation of IT Grid computing.

This book covers a lot of stuff! From installation transcripts for GT 2,3,4, scheduler installation, customization to Grid portal development. The book has little theory but I found some interesting numbers on the potential growth of the grid computing market over the next few years. It has a lot of source code and plenty of images to support it thus it is targeted to software engineers and developers involved on grid computing.

There is some complex math (related to large integer factorization) which is hard to understand for the novice but overall I give it five stars. All major protocols used by the globus toolkit are explained: resource allocation, data management, and security.

P.S: There is also a few chapters dedicated to the Message Passing Interface (MPI) with examples and some integration tips with the Globus Resource Allocation Manager (GRAM) which I found unique.

This book is preety darn good. I covers a broad range of grid topics such as: grid middleware, resource managers, schedulers, parallel computing with MPI, etc.
I specially liked the chapter on grid enabled portal development. It has helped me a lot at work. There is also a comprehensive guide to the Globus toolkit (GT3, GT4, WSRF) that is full of samples, transcripts and troubleshooting tips.

Overall, I think this book is a great tool for the grid engineer and developer.

Cheers.

Grid computing promises to be the next big wave in high performance computing. While the power of today's PC's has gotten relatively huge, easily passing the supercomputers of not so long ago, there are still certain applications in weather, nuclear physics, bioinformatics and other areas where far more computing power is needed.

The first step was to take a bunch of PC's and cluster them together to make a more powerful system. When these large massively parallel systems were built, it then became clear that taking several of these from around the country or even the world could produce 'systems' of considerably more power.

The answer was 'The Grid.' Funded by the US Government, work began several years ago to produce the basic tools needed to make Grid computing work. This book clearly explains, in a practical sense, what Grid computing has become today. It gives some background and description of grid computing. Then it goes into the software that has been written that enables the practical use of such systems.

The book is comprehensive enough that it could be used by students or administrators that are working with or even just considering using a grid architecture.

This book by wells takes you step by step through the installation procedure and covers basically from history of Linux to maintaining it. But because this book is only about 700 pages, its only covers the most basic. As computer person you are, you know Linux is far more complicated yet powerful for users and require a much deeper explaination and usage on the OS. For beginners, this book is for you. This book is probably good for a textbook in college for introductions and maybe just a simple guide to yourself. For administrators, you may want this to compliment your vast library of Linux books.

When I decided that I wanted to learn about Linux I started out by buying one of the "Linux for Dummies" books. The only problem was that it did not cover all the topics and what it did cover seemed more like a light overview. So I ended up signing up for a Unix (Linux) class at a local college and Wells' book was the textbook. It's an excellent book for beginners. It assumes no prior knowledge of Linux/Unix and explains everything you need to know. All topics are covered thoroughly. If you are not lucky enough to have access to a Linux class that you can take at your local college, you could probably just read this book and learn a great deal by self-study. By the way, we used this book to learn the general concepts, but also used "Linux In A Nutshell" by Ellen Sievers as our reference for all of the commands. Both books together will definitely cover most everything you need to know in order to become Linux-literate.

i've just finished reading this book and i consider it as an A book for poeple trying to get the LPI level 1 and the 2 examens of the GNU & Sair linux crtification, and in fact i've just start teaching this book for the 2 certifications mentioned above. it's a good book and it takes you step by step for the certification. But as NET ADMIN you can use it as a reference in you library.

If you're interested in getting Linux certification or just want to learn more about your Linux system, this book was written with you in mind.

It assumes nothing and takes the reader through an introduction to Linux and then methodically works from installation to command line usage to enabling servers.

The material is written in an easy-to-read style and the author writes in a way so that you get a decent grasp of the material presented.

In fact, if I had to recommend the one book for a Linux newbie that is meaty yet easy to digest, it would be this tome.

Highly recommended!

I was looking for some SQL Server books to get started on my work to move from Access to SQL Server and these books were just what I was looking for.

If you're thinking of setting up a database to keep track of your local phone book or kitchen recipes, go get something else. (That is, if the price hasn't already told you that.) Note the title: The Guro's Guide. And he means it.

If you're a database developer or administrator using Microsoft SQL Server, get this book today. It would be nice to think that all the big databases met the ANSI standard and were therefore truly portable from database to database and it would be nice to have a Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny. Instead we are left with really having to understand deeply. And this Guru knows what's going on where.

There are three books in this series. I'm more into programming so I found the book on Transact-Sql to be the one that I pick up the most. It's got more stuff on T-SQL than any of the half dozen other books I have, some of which are much bigger. What that means is that the writing style doesn't waste a lot of time on excess verbage. It's tight and concise. And that means not for beginners looking for a lot of this is a database kind of stuff.

But the volume that I need the most is the Guide to Architecture and Internals. I don't use it often, but when I do it is likely to be the only book available that tells me what I need to know at that moment. It's also something you might keep by your bedside. Unless I'm working on a specific problem, thirty seconds and I'm out.

The third book is on Stored Procedures (just in case you want to run faster), XML and HTML.

Conclusion, if you're serious about SQL Server, you can't do any better.

Guru's Guide offers the best set of information on the marked. It quickly becomes a friend you cannot live without, when approaching the boundaries of the usual coding.

The guide is directed towards the 2000 version, but its transact-SQL examples are just as easy applied to 2005.

With my full recommendations

Guldmann,Denmark

I am a database consultant with Microsoft, and would not be without these books. I strongly recommend the boxed set of three books to everyone working with SQL Server. I also personally know Ken, and his overall knowledge of SQL Server and Windows development is tops.

This Book it's the one you should read If you want to learn how to protect against hackers methodologies out there,
highly recommended.

This is a must-have book for anyone who works with Windows clients or servers as a part of their job. It gives a lot of detail, both on what security issues Windows security administrators face, as well as guidance on how to mitigate risks regarding Windows security. The checklists in the back of the book alone are worth keeping as a baseline lockdown policy.

This book is awesome! It covers everything including vista. I have many editions of hacking exposed and so far I am loving it!

John- OSCP, C|EH, MCSA, CCNA, CCDA,

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of HE:Windows.

The latest HE:Windows takes us toe to toe with Vista and Server 2008 and gives us a recap of some Win2k3 and Win2k knowledge. I was torn between whether to give this book three or four stars. I ended up giving it a four because it was well written, hit the majority objectives it laid out, and would be useful for someone that didn't have the two previous iterations, if you have the other two keep in mind there is a fair amount of content reuse and if you do this for a living, it may come up short of expectations.

The book covers a lot of ground but at the end I was left feeling like the authors were saying that if I was pentesting a Vista host or Server 2008 host/domain I should just call it quits. Going back and rereading a bit of the HE: Windows Server 2003 book I felt they said the same thing in that book as well. This obviously ended up being not the case, and I don't think will be the case with Vista and Server 2008 either. Its also not a viable option for any penetration tester.

Some examples of what I am talking about can be seen in Chapter 4 where the SMB enumeration examples only work against Windows 2000 and maybe Windows XP SP1. No mention of how to actually start pulling that information out from current environments. The Active Directory section reused the old content and made no discussion of any current tools or changes in 2003 environments and 2008 environments which have pretty much eliminated anonymous binds to extract information. Chapter 5, Hacking Windows Specific Services reused a lot of content which was disappointing, especially disappointing was the reuse of the smbrelay content, especially with tools that work much better like the smbrelay module in the metasploit framework.

The rootkit chapter is pretty good and talks about a rootkit I had never heard of (Unreal rootkit)..

Client side attacks has a decent update to it covering phishing, ActiveX, office and pdf exploits and a bit of cross site scripting, but refers you to the HE Web Applications book for more detail, which is fair.

Physical Attacks section is mostly the same with some updates on wireless, keyloggers and bootkits but mostly just overviews not followable steps.

Ch12 windows security features and tools is probably what pushed the book from a 3 to a 4. It covered bitlocker, Vista Windows integrity control, server hardening, stack protections, and others information.

I always seem to find the right book at the at the right price at amazon. This time was no exception. I went with amazon because of the free shipping and it arrived in a timely manner. I was not disappointed. The book arrived in described condition, and I hope to get my moneys worth out of it. Thanks Amazon.

Fantastic reference.
Great examples in asm and "C".
Good explainations.
A must have if you are using this family of MCU's.
Covers tools as well.

Let me state that I'm a rank novice to microcontroller programming and embedded systems. This book seemed quite comprehensive, going as far as recommending demo boards and compilers to run the examples in. There were a few errors (i.e. Chapter 14, table 1 and figure 1 are the same) but the code all seemed to compile and run ok and the CD provided all of the source code for both assembly and C. All in all this book covered pretty much everything I wanted it to and would recommend it for any student looking to use the new HC9S12 family of microprocessors.

I'm an Electrical Enigineering student and do a lot of work with the Freescale MC9S12 family of 16-bit microcontrollers. After using just about every other book on the market for the HC(S)12 family, I can honestly say that this one is the best - by far. It's definitely the only one you will need on your desk if you work with these chips. The thing that makes it so useful is the wealth of code included in the text - both in assembly and C. Most books on the topic just include assembly, which is a fine place to start, but most of my work is done in C. So having the addition of the extra language is a huge selling point for me. And this book is for JUST the S12 family; it doesn't try to confuse things by adding the older HC12 family. The author includes code for everything that he goes over; and not just one or two snippets, there are many full examples for each of the topics covered. The author thoroughly discusses all of the hardware aboard the S12. It's like he takes the Freescale User Guides, interprets them into a form that's very easy to understand, and then gives you the code, both in assembly and C, to perform the task that was just explained. The author chose to use AsmIDE, MiniIDE, and GNU C for the code in the book. These software tools are freeware which makes the book more appealing to students or those without high-dollar development tools. In addition, they're included in the CD that comes with the book, and since they are freeware IDE's, they have no memory size restriction like the tools included with many other book CD's. Also, a plethora of practical applications are presented such as interfacing the S12 with stepper and DC motors, Servos, keypads, LCD's, external memory and much more. It also explains how to program the onboard Flash memory using both the resident booloader and a BDM. No other book that I have found even comes close to presenting just these two topics as well as Dr. Huang does. Before I had this book, I spent weeks trying to figure out Flash programming and Interrupts. This book makes it simple. Also, if you're just starting out and not familiar with a programming language, this book begins at the ground level introducing assembly and C. Basically, this is THE textbook on how to make the HCS12 microcontroller work. I use mine constantly and all of my other books just sit on the shelf - honestly. Come to think of it, the copy I have isn't even mine but my professor's :) To sum it up, I love this book because it's completely up-to-date, easy to use, and applicable to actual applications that one is likely use with the HCS12. You can tell that Dr. Huang actually uses the S12 and knows what he's talking about; not just a professor writing a text for an academic audience. This book is completely thorough and made to be used in the field. Money well invested! Thank-you Dr. Huang for such a great book!