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I like this book and am still reading it and I think I can pick up lots of skills and knowledge about Web Services. One more thing I want to mention here is that I accidentally hit a button on amazon web pages for purchasing this book so I ended up buying 2 copies of this book, a hard copy and a soft copy. I should get refund on the soft copy becuase I never review it online. The following is the part of the order info for the soft copy:

Order #: D01-8384140-5827130
Subtotal of items: $ 11.99
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Total before tax: $ 11.99
Estimated Tax: $ 0.00
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Total: $ 11.99
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Total for this Order: $ 11.99

My primary reason for buying this book was the eye-catcher word "Real-World Projects" in the subtitle. I'm a professional developer/architect of enterprise size IT-projects and the fastest way for me to learn new things is by using examples. So in fact the "Development Perspective" chapter was the first chapter I've read and found it very useful if you are going to use WebSphere 5 in your project.
I was pleased to see that the next chapter "Operational Perspective" actually deals with questions regarding deployment and configuration. This is something most books are missing and many projects underestimate the importance of these aspects for a successful rollout.
Finally after reading two very useful chapters (written in an enjoyable style), I've decided to give the other chapters also a try and I wasn't disappointed. This book covers all important aspects for a successful webservice project and I strongly recomment it if you are going to start such a project.
During my time as a technical lead at Hewlett-Packard, I've got the opportunity to participate a pretty expensive software architect workshop. I was pleased to see lots of "Does and Dont's" I've learned in this workshop in the "Architecture Perspective" chapter of this book.
I finally ended up in reading all chapters of the book. I haven't read all pages of this book because of my previous knowledge and because of the excellent offered shortcuts within this book. But the time I've spent reading the rest was a rewarding investment. Whatever role you are going to play in a webservice project: you will find something useful within this book.
And finally don't forget: even Grady Booch thinks this book is a must-have. He wrote a nice forword for the book.

If you had to time or money for just one book on Web Services, this would be it. The book truly delivers on different perspectives namely, business, training, architecture, development, operational and "future". You start by learning enough to convince your boss (or clients, in my case) of the benefits of using your approach and then proceed to master the whole XML based implementations as well. Dense read, though: there is enough material in each chapter to cover an entire book. If you are a java programmer, it makes it even better, most probably because the book came out in 2003 when Microsoft .NET was still pretty clueless about all this web services stuff anyway. Even the J2EE world is way ahead of the book in terms of implementation. Still an excellent read, so my only request would be...a second, updated edition!

This book excells in explaining the IBM Toolsets and their applicability in the Web Services and SOA area. Unfortunately they are for version 5 and a version 6.x addendum would be great.
Having said that working the examples into version 6 format is good practice and not too much sweat.
This book provides all the coverage you need if you are dealing with the IBM WebSphere kit (all the IBM Redbooks are also a great help!)

Review:

"Perspectives on Web services: Applying SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to Real-World Projects" Zimmermann O., Tomlinson M., Peuser S.; Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 2003.

This voluminous text is essentially about the classic man-machine relationship model.

The reviewer became interested in this topic and monitored the slowly evolving field until 1962 when he published a paper entitled "Shaping and Controlling Human Behaviour in Man-Machine Systems"; Proceedings of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Industrial Administration and Engineering Production Group, Vol. 177, Number 34, pp 935-950; 1963 (1 Birdcage Walk, Westminister, SW 1).

He presented the Performance System Spectrum with Man at one end and the Machine at the other. In between these two extremes he defined and illustrated a multitude of combinations including Simple Man-Machine, Complex Man-Machine, Men-Machine, Man-Machine-Man, Man-Machine-Men, and Men-Machine-Men.


By 1963, time-sharing and remote operator terminals had evolved and the computer systems were mainframe...the personal computer and the Internet, if they were envisioned at all, would have been considered purely science-fiction. In relation to the Men-Machine-Men system, he wrote: "...the total system has become so complex, with so many inputs from and outputs to human(s), that design engineers tend to move towards a fully automated system..." In the more than four decades which followed, the flood of computerized systems (and computer acronyms) increased as anyone reading this can testify. And that brings us to today...and Web Services.

We shall see that Web Services satisfies the definition and is a Men-Machine-Men system. To quickly understand what Web Services is the average reader shouldn't start with the text under review but with an excellent article, "The Web Within the Web," Enrique Castro-Leon, IEEE Spectrum, February 2004, pp 42-46. Examining this paper first and then delving leisurely into "Perspectives on Web Services: Applying SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to Real-World Projects" will have a higher payoff even for those readers who are experienced software engineers, developers, analysts, and systems architects.

Castro-Leon presents a concise thumbnail view of this emerging concept. He argues that "...dusty, musty databases filled with useful data that would be far more useful if linked with other, equally dusty databases; enormous databases that are locked up inside ancient mainframes and quaintly archaic minicomputers; lonely databases residing on specialized file servers throughout an enterprise (pronounced business); even modern databases on Web servers...(are) stuck in long-obsolete proprietary formats or accessible only through hypermodern scripting languages..." Further, "... Web services are a way programmers can make their databases available across the Web , let other programmers access them, and tie these disparate databases together into services that are novel, perhaps even wonderful..." This, of course, is the basic reasoning for improving the Machine part of the Men-Machine-Men performance system.

"...Web browsers have liberated us from the tyranny of specific hardware and the near monopoly of the Windows operating system...(because of)...the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which provides a standard for the way Web pages are downloaded from a Web site to a computer, and the generic nature of Web pages themselves..." The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) ",...was designed to encode things that will be viewed by people, rather than processed by another machine. HTML mixes formatting commands...with data because it was designed as a display language..." Castro-Leon continues: "...if Web services are to build powerful networks of collaborating databases and services, the first step is replacing HTML with something more compatible with the world of databases, something that can be understood by another computer...such a new language has been developed...a subset of HTML, called XML, for Extensible Markup Language..."

This movement to improve the Machine subsystem did not end with the invention of XML. There had to be some mechanism to move XML data rather than HTML across the Internet. This was SOAP --- Simple Object Access Protocol --- a generic wrapper which is an envelope recognized and accepted by Web browsers and servers. Together, XML and SOAP give Web Services interoperability.

However, another specification was needed called UDDI ---Universal Discovery, Description and Integration --- which, as Castro-Leon states, "...lets Web Services look for databases (by Machine) in the same way that Google lets humans look for Webpages..." But the process didn't end with the development of UDDI. There had to be a standard which allowed the Machine to determine what is at a site once it has been identified. This standard was WSDL --- Web Services Description Language. All of these protocols took years to develop....and the improvements continue to this day.

Having presented an overview of Web Services from Castro-Leon, it is now time to review the 648 page text entitled, "Perspectives on Web Services: Applying SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to Real-World Projects" This is in essence a "how-to" or a "cook" book, using an old world term, which goes into exquisite detail about how these software elements work inside the Machine and how to utilize them effectively and profitably. One might describe it as a "Web Services for Dummies" type of text but written at a much higher intellectual and professional level. The occasional humor is within acceptable limits and not extreme.

In the Men-Machine-Men model, the Machine is represented by all of the computer systems in the Internet world-wide and includes SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI as software and all of the hardware world-wide. The Men at one side are all the humans dealing with the Internet as users while the Men on the other side of the Machine are all the software people feeding the Machine world-wide with data and graphics which are then manipulated inside the Machine by SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI. You can visualize that the users might have a population of millions and possibly billions of individuals and the software people might represent a population of millions of individuals. That is why this volume on Web Services is an important reference today as the system is being implemented --- but there is a cautionary poem by the systems guy Kenneth Boulding regarding this Machine:

A system is a big black box
Of which we can't unlock the locks,
And all we can find out about
Is what goes in and what comes out.

Perceiving input-output pairs
Related by parameters
Permits us, sometimes, to relate
An input, output, and a state.

If this relation's good and stable,
Then to predict we may be able.
But if this fails us - heaven forbid
We'll be compelled to force the lid!

Having forced the lid --- you are now inside the Machine! The book is structured using the "goto" branching command. The authors encourage the reader to study a section and then decide to continue on or "goto" a different section. In fact, they suggest not reading from cover-to-cover at all but selecting those parts directly related to the reader's job role.

The text is neatly divided into Perspectives chapters which follow a typical project sequence: Business, Training, Architecture, Development, Operational, Engagement, and Future. The authors state that they and their anticipated readers are "technical people" and their approach in writing was shaped in that way

Chapter 1 is The Business Perspective. In 30 pages they discusses definitions, EAI (Enterprise Application Integration), B2C (Business-to- Consumer), B2B (Business-to-Business), A2A (Application-to-Application), H2A (Human-to-Application), and potential inhibitors to decision-making. The Case Study of a fictitious insurance company is introduced which will be threaded throughout the book. Some of the flowchart models are clearer than others.

Chapter 2 is The Training Perspective. A better term for this perspective would be the "technical information" found in a manual used by individuals for self-instruction to learn about the software. 123 pages are devoted to a tutorial of concepts and technologies but the reader is not expected at this point to be able to apply them.

There is an overview of WebServices concepts and detailed information on the XML markup language including namespaces and schema. Attention to given to SOAP message formats and encoding. This is followed by WSDL, the interface description, containment structure of WSDL documents, and binding-related document elements. There are descriptions of UDDI's registry structure, identifier bag, category bag, binding template, tModel structure, linking to a UDDI registry, an API (Application Programming Interface) overview, and brief mention of WSIL (Web Service Inspection Language). There many well-designed coding sheet examples which would make sense to experienced programmers but probably not to novices.

About 86 pages are assigned to Chapter 3: The Architecture Perspective. The authors provide an introduction to Web Services architecture oulining paradigm changes, J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) and defining Web Services as the software part of the Machine. WSA (Web Services Architecture) is explained with the use of stacks and a disclaimer is provided since not all of the terms are universally accepted. WSA building blocks and component walkthrough is covered. Explanations are given for WS principles, Generic vs. Generated API, design patterns, business patterns, architectural patterns (microflow, intermediary, and interceptor/pipeline) and process choreography including public-to-private process mapping. Architectural decisions are outlined along with service matchmaking. In addition, NFRs (Non-Functional Requirements), gaps and countermeasures and SOAP Section 5 encoding are discussed. Finally, XML-based, WS, and application layer security are explained. There is a useful FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section ending the chapter.

Chapter 4 is The Development Perspective. Consisting of 192 pages, this chapter has a considerable amount of meat and consequently may cause indigestion for the vegetarians among us. The authors state that a reader should have a "...solid reading comprehension of J2SE and J2EE APIs..." It is written at a fairly deep level of detail related to reader motivation and categorizes this interest as: casual, steady or junkie. There is an emphasis on "goto" branching. Most of the coding examples are also found on Springer websites.

The introduction to the development of WS in Java presents the WebSphere Studio Workbench and Eclipse.org. WebSphere SDK (WSDK), the Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK), and Apache SOAP 2.3 are described with some caveats regarding known flaws. This is followed by JAX-RPC and Apache Axis, definitions, an introduction to WS for J2EE and JSR 109 and the WSDK Toolkit.

At this point, starting on page 259, the first example or case in The Case Study is considered --- all the prior pages having been dedicated to technical information to bring the reader up to speed. The authors refer to the example as a "sample" and it is, of course, a simulation where the case problem is run on the WS model being described so the reader can learn how to do it later in real-life. More precisely it is a training simulation testing (with some debugging) of the solution provided by the authors....the author's terminology will be used here.

The case scenario involves several fictitious insurance companies. In terms of the Performance System Spectrum, this scenario deals with the Men-Machine-Men model with Men being Internal Users and the Machine processing risk and fraud management matters. Business logic requirements are considered and "The Great Debate" over Apache Soap or JAX-RPC occurs, followed by configuring and building the sample. To build RPC/Encoded Services for Java the bottom-up and top-down approaches are reviewed. There is a discussion of building EJB (Enterprise Java Beans) WS with Apache SOAP, and using the WS Wizard. The process of exploring and modifying generated files is described. Building EJB WS with JAX-RPC and JSR 109 follows, In addition, exploring generated server side files, updating the project build paths, modifying generated files, and testing the deployed service are briefly delineated.

The reader is encouraged to build RPC/encoded services from WSDL first creating WS from WSDL using Apache SOAP and then testing the WS client. There is also the process of creating WS from WSDL using JAX-RPC/JSR 109 and updating the WSDL document and installing the SOAP Router, and finally testing the WS. A section is devoted to programmatic access to WSDL, using the WSDL4J toolkit, testing the JWSDL application and creating JWSDL clients with JAX-RPC and JSR 109. The reader learns to use WS-Inspection to build service indices from Java and also with Apache Soap and to configure WSIL4J.. There many excellent figures illustrating this part of the simulation. At this point, the text moves ahead to the use of UDDI.

There are discussions of UDDI access from Java and browsers, using UDDI with Apache SOAP and also with JAX-RPC and JSR 109, using other Web Services bindings, creating a document/literal Service from WSDL and a document/literal Service Client. A secton is dedicated to orchestrating Web Services and use of the Process Editor. The reader learns about using attachments with SOAP, using SOAP headers and finally exporting the completed sample. While space is assigned to finding more information, there isn't any for FAQ which could have been useful at this stage. Some System Administrators have argued that constructing the application in this chapter was the easy part. The next stage deals with implementing it in a production environment and might be viewed as more difficult.

Chapter 5 presents The Operational Perspective which the authors have truncated to 79 pages and rely on the experience of the reader to fill in some technical gaps. There are many specific references to coding samples in .zip format on Springer websites. This chapter deals with the system architecture hosting the software and we are now deep inside the Machine in the Men-Machine-Men system --- and continually aware of Boulding's admonition: "....If this relation's good and stable, Then to predict we may be able. But if this fails us - heaven forbid, We'll be compelled to force the lid!..."

There is a discussion of topology, standalone topology, additional components,and clustered and managed topology. Reference is made to the Access Management Subsystem, load balancing and high availability support. At this point, the Case Study simulation of a fictitious insurance company continues and for the remaining pages is interspersed with tutorial information .

There are explanations of Deploying Web Services, the WebSphere Application Server, deployment and configuring the application server. There is information on JDBC configuration, JAAS authentication and Cloudscape, and restarting and testing the installation. Next comes Deploying Services, wsadmin, ANT; working on the private UDDI Registry, including configuring and adding WSDL documents to the UDDI Registry. Descriptions are provided for testing, clustering, and node agents; working with the IBM HTTP Server, starting, testing clusters, and finally cold standby.

Attention is given to Securing the WS Implementation: security threats, countermeasures, WS-Security, and future WS-Security extensions, Securing WS with HTTPS and SSL --- as the simulation continues. The chapter closes with the WS Gateway and how to configure it, deploying a WS to the Gateway, updating and client testing. Frequent mention is made of specific websites to support the simulation so the reader is not completely alone with just the text.

Chapter 6 is The Engagement Perspective of 27 pages and a typical reader would sense that the end is in sight!! This chapter reviews many technical points emphasized in the Case Study simulation and adds the following: Planning a WS Development Project, Outlining Requirements and High Level Design, Planning and Staffing, Running the Project, including testing and going live, Success Factors, Elements of Risk,lessons learned and design advice. There is a final look at the Case Study simulation.

The Future Perspective appears in Chapter 7. The authors briefly identify SOAP Version 1.2, WSDL Version 1.2, UDDI Version 3.0, and grid computing for the immediate future. The Semantic Web including RDF and OWL are mentioned and they provide mid- and long-term visions.

The chapter concludes with "Now enjoy the first project in which you apply and exploit this hot technology!"

There are rather complete coding steps, flowcharts, and screen displays in the boilerplate content of the Appendix including: Building the Case Study Policy Systems, Java to XML Mapping, and C# --- and 87 References for those who desire additional background.

As Castro-Leon in summarizing his IEEE Spectrum article said: "...the semantic Web's benefits won't be seen for some time; Web Services are here today...it will connect almost every island of data, software, and device on the planet..." The reviewer believes that this volume which introduces Web Services is a valuable asset in the drive to improve the Men-Machine-Men system which we call the Internet.

Leonard C. Silvern
Systems Engineering Laboratories
Clarkdale, AZ

We have used this cookbook for years and continue to go back to it again and again for our favorite and new recipes alike. I'd recommend this to anyone who is looking for not-too-complicated recipes that are delicious! Favorites are the Red Snapper with Black Bean Salsa and the French Pepper Steak - two recipes we have made dozens of times.

I am just now learning to cook, and must admit that every single recipe I have tried in both Main Line Classics I and II have been delicious. Now even I can cook for my in-laws!!

This is a wonderful cookbook for quick, easy, and DELICIOUS recipes. Great for company or family dinners. Ingredients are easy to find. I love this book.

This community cookbook has so many recipes that are easy, up-to-date, and ready for company. I have used this book, and it's companion...Main Line Classics many, many times. I love them both.

I have enjoyed preparing many of the recipes. Most are very easy to follow and the end results very tasty. The complete menus at the back of the book provide guidance when planning a dinner party. The fact that 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the cookbook is donated to the comunity makes this a favorite cookbook.

What is the internet?
How and when did it begin?
Where does the network go?
Who originally thought of the concept?
Why is the internet useful and necessary?
Was Al Gore involved?

All these questions and more (minus the Al Gore one) are in The Pocket Guide To The Internet.

From ISPs to Packets, from AOL to telnet, and emoticons to netiquette, it's all present. There's a wealth of knowledge in every chapter, and the steps are slow enough for all. In fact, many of even the most novice users of the Internet will find much of the information mundane.

The book provides page after page of helpful information, providing a multitude of web addresses, acronyms, and definitions that, if anything, provid a sort of printed dictionary/encyclopedia about the internet.

This is a great resource for someone starting at ground zero with no knowledge whatsoever.

The "concept" of the Net is very important for the uninitiated. Your zeroing in on how the Internet should be viewed in the mind's eye is excellent. It's the idea or the "vision" of the over-all system as a "place" that is expanding its own boundaries in all directions gives your readers a sense of the sheer "enormity" of it all. And yet, all of it is reachable by a simple wire with a tiny, plastic push-in-and-click wall plug!! Marvelous. Robert M. Jackson, Jr.

I'm about half way through your book. In fact I'm on page 148 beginning Web Culture. I have found your book to be very informitive. Was very interested in the section on Gopher. Tried to get information on swollen joints, but reread and found that I needed to use WWW and Exite to pull it up. As I read your book I try the new reading out on my computer. Again thanks for the information.

Al Witte

I recently bought your paperback (The Pocket Guide to the I'Net) at the local Wal-Mart. Of course I was skeptical, since I've read or scanned through a dozen how-to books and intro-to books in my endeavours to learn better and train better.

But ... something about your style engaged me. So I bought the book. Halfway through it I think I know what it is I like about your text ... you're an Internet teacher who agrees with *me*!

I was talking with Wendy Green last week (literally talking, not virtually) and described my reaction to your book. She encouraged me to drop you a line. She says you lurk on the misc.writing newsgroup from time to time and she recognized your name. (What a high-traffic newsgroup!)

I webmaster for my company (www.ag.org) and am also responsible to train anybody in our midst how to understand and navigate the 'Net. For a good part of the last year I lectured to our local Internet users' group and now moonlight at a local cybercafe teaching Internet classes for paying customers. So, my plate is full and I'm happy to find material which so nicely augments my own presentations!

For a while I struggled with the relative worth of helping people understand this beast. Especially when they're *paying* to do so! After all, these people just want to know how to send email and 'surf the Web', why should I waste time talking about its military roots for goodness sake?

So, if for no other reason, I appreciate your book for the affirmation I've found there. Of course, I don't *always* agree with your presentation or your choice of wording, but then who agrees with *anybody* one hundred percent? I can't argue with the facts of your text, though, you have certainly done your research! (I only wish it was footnoted! ) At heart I am a teacher and no matter what I do or where I'm at that's likely the role I've fallen into. From one teacher to another: you done good. (Of course, I'm sure you know that! The royalties should speak well enough!)

I bought your book 'Pocket Guide to the Internet' (Pocket Books) a couple of months back here in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and enjoyed it greatly. It was a great introduction to the Net. Thought provoking and nicely written. I continue to use it as a reference.

The fact that everyone uses the web in some way or another, this is a good book to have. I am a computer junkie and this book definitely kept my head afloat. But I highly recommend you read "A Branded World" by Michael Levine. This author really knows what he's talking about. The next time a company hands out memos to its employees, make sure "A Branded World" is on the top of the page!

Bob really knows what he is talking about. He gives a lot of wonderful easy to read tips on how to get your name recognized on the web. He is very clever & witty and fun to read. I recommend you get a copy now.

The Internet offers a lot of "get rich quick" schemes, and advice based on 20th-century advertising techniques. However, what worked in the past century and before the Internet, is not working now. From "Cluetrain" to "Gonzo Marketing," there's ample proof of that.

But, if you're self-employed and/or building your online identity... how do you start? And, if you've been online for awhile but you're somehow missing the boat--or at least your audience--what do you do without a corporate advertising budget and webmaster/advisors to help you?

The answer is simple: You get this book. And read it. I've read Chapter Two at least ten times, and I'm still making notes about what I'm changing on my own website (online since 1995, and boy-oh-boy have I made mistakes! *sigh*).

Baker's books are not for wimps. And, they're not the sitcom version of business, where you spend a few days creating a by-the-numbers clone of others' websites, and then sit back expecting income to flood in like clockwork.

Instead of being a book that you read, say, "Oh, that made some good points," and then put on a shelf to collect dust, this is a book that you'll read, re-read, and keep close to hand. Baker's book is information-packed. There is no way that you'll learn it all in one reading, or even two.

This is easily in the top five books that everyone who is (or wants to be) in business online MUST own. Sure, you can read the sample chapters at Baker's website, or take this book out of the library, but it contains too much important advice for that. And, you'll refer to it often, as well.

Buy this book. Roll up your sleeves and do what he says. It's how to succeed on- and offline, in the 21st century. It's not your parents' business era anymore. Learn the new rules in this book, and give yourself a genuine chance for success.

Baker's information would be cheap at ten times the price; it's already helped me to increase the daily hits at one of my websites from 500/day to over 800/day. And, I'm still on Chapter Three!

I haven't made it past chapter 3 and I have already read a wealth of helpful information on branding your business name and branding tools. The author provides a detailed, step-by-step guide to branding and marketing techniques one can use both online and offline. This book is a must read for first-time start-ups and entreprenuers.

This is a great book for those of you who want to make a name for yourself on-line. Bob has an abundance of ideas to get you started and to keep you going as you explore the ways to market yourself online. Bob has a very witty and humorous way to keep you interested in what he has to say. I think Mr. Baker is on the cutting edge of where the future of online marketing is headed. I highly recommend this book.

In the wonderful book, "Think and Grow Rich," by Napoleon Hill, he advises readers to think of role models who at night, just before going to sleep, you imagine are in a meeting with. During this imaginary meeting you are asking them to teach you what you most admire in them.

And he calls these people his invisible counselors.

Aliza, in essense, is doing this, through "PowerTools For Women in Business," by telling the story of 10 women who continue to convert their most adverse life experiences into propelling causes, work and prospererty.

Because, as Mary-Scott Welch, "Networking", said, "It helps a lot to get other women's ideas about your problems, not in the abstract but in the very specific terms of a real-life situation," a book like "PowerTools is a great beginning for women to walk through the examples of other women, to bring out the best in who we are.

As a journalist, I have the opportunity to meet many authors, and I must say that some of them do not live the messages that they promotee in their books - but Aliza certainly does.

This book contains easy to follow, real life stories of women maximizing their strengths, while never forgeting to be women.

Thank you, Aliza for living your mission.

Aliza Sherman writes a powerful guide filled with tips and tools that inspire, challenge and help you grow professionally and personally.

Aliza Sherman's PowerTools For Women In Business is an enthusiastic, can-do optimistic guide that teaches women how to best take advantage of their own strengths and personalities to succeed in the business world. PowerTools For Women In Business is about keeping professional and personal lives in harmonious balance, never sacrificing one at the expense of another, when for women especially they tend to become all too intertwined. Personally imposed barriers to success, and emotional obstacles such as guilt or unease wielding power can be confronted and conquered. Very highly recommended reading for any female executive, especially one who is relatively new to the cutthroat, male-dominated, complex and demanding world of business!

If you're in a need of some inspiration, read this book. PowerTools will get you energized to turn your dreams into a reality. Reading all the touching and motivating anecdotes from other women will empower you to take action to achieve what's most important to you.

I loved this book! Aliza has a wonderful way of drawing compelling stories out of high-powered women and creating "rules" for success based on how these big girls have done it. As a matter of fact, Rule #1 is "Share Your Stories -- Teach, Inspire, Motivate, and Learn by Telling and Listening." A critical lesson, that by overcoming our fear of asking for help and appearing needy, we can actually get farther faster by talking about the areas of business we are stuck in and learning from the advice of others. Powertools was a fun and informative read.

This is by far the best book available on DNS. It is very informative and yet the reading style is entertaining (not fluffy though). Overall, it is a joy to read. The author is able to communicate effectively to both the expert and the novice. Look no further than here for a great DNS reference book. Way to go Ron Aitchison!

After reading several of the chapter sections at the authors website, I needed a bit more understanding about how to install and configure Bind 9 onto our Windows box. I wanted to use Bind on old hardware running NT4. I fired off an email to the author and got several pointers that fixed the problems I was having. I realized the pointers he had given me were all covered in his book. After purchasing the book, I not only found out lots of stuff about what all the parameters are but also discovered how to manage bind over the LAN in a secure way. This book is a must have for anyone that wants to use Bind 9 for the first time. It has helped me several times already.

The Domain Name System is a critical component of any large network or any computer connected to the Internet. While a home user would not need to setup a DNS server, business networks of any significant size would benefit from an internal server, DNS caching router or other components. This book takes the reader through a very good explanation of DNS and BIND, how it works, how to set it up, how to test it, and how to troubleshoot it. There are many books on DNS and BIND but most either assume a certain level of prior knowledge, provide theory without implementation information, or provide implementation information without any theory so you have no idea how to troubleshoot a problematic implementation. Author Ron Aitchison does an excellent job of discussing both theory and implementation in this book so you end up with a thorough education. He even covers the implementation of a secure DNS server. This book actually takes the reader from a level of complete novice through advanced DNS administrator and does an excellent job of it. Pro DNS and BIND is highly recommended and one of the better books on the subject available.

Ron Aitchison's Pro DNS and BIND packs a whopping 550 pages of material which is easy to read for the novice or ongoing DNS administrator, and which is very well written (I greatly enjoyed the author's style). After a short introduction in which I learnt some interesting facts about the provisioning of the root servers, the author implements a first zone describing the necessary concepts such as resource records, queries and zone transfers very clearly, followed by the different types of DNS setups (master, slave, caching, forwarding and stealth servers); these are covered in depth in chapter 7. Chapter five covers IPv6 and its relevance to BIND. Throughout the book, references to other DNS server implementations are given, but the primary focus is of course BIND 9.3.0.

Aitchison leads the reader through detailed installation of BIND on Linux, FreeBSD and even Windows (ISC has an installer for Windows in its portfolio), after which common DNS tasks are discussed (how to delegate a subdomain, how to define SPF records, etc. read it on-line here) as well as a chapter on tools.

The third part of the book is dedicated to securing DNS configurations with topics ranging from simple administrative issues (chroot jails) through securing DNS updates and zone transfers with TSIG and DNSSEC.bis which is covered very extensively in chapter 11.

Chapters 12 and 13 provide extensive commented references on BIND configuration and Zone files. There is of course plenty of on-line reference information on these two topics (including the author's very good DNS for Rocket Scientists) but I like to have reference information on hardcopy (in the event my DNS servers fail, and I can't reach the on-line documentation :-) )

In part 5 the author shortly covers programming with the BIND API and the resolver libraries, and he follows that with an interesting chapter on DNS Messages and Records, good to have if you want to sniff your way through DNS traffic.

The publisher's web site carries a sample chapter as well as the source code to the book which is also available in TAR format on the author's web site together with complementary information and pointers to further resources.

My only complaint about this otherwise excellent book is that on two or three occasions I read a paragraph that I thought I'd just read before; some duplication must have taken place (or I was tired). For the next edition, I'd like to read a chapter on interoperability between BIND and Microsoft Windows DNS servers, specifically regarding DNSSEC.

This book is an absolute must have for anybody who needs to understand DNS in the first place (irrespective of the implementation he or she plans to use), and it is a must have for a systems administrator who is either intending to deploy or has already deployed BIND 9.3. I wish I'd read this book before the first mentioned above.

while the reference from Paul Albitz/Cricket Liu is sometimes hard to read and long winded, this text from Mr. Aitchinson covers everything and yet stays very clear and simple. I could configure and start a caching only DNS server in less than 30 minutes (well, after omitting the first few introductory chapters ;-). If you want to look up sth., there is also a big reference section. There is also an errata-page at:
http://www.netwidget.net/books/apress/dns/notes.html

I also found this book *much* more useful as the first, because of the fact that it is much more up-to-date!
I can recommend this book to everyone, who
*) wants to install/configure/start/maintain a DNS server
*) wants to get informed about the Domain Name System in general

Up to now, this book is really an insiders' tip!!

This book has some great examples to help you take your Sharepoint environment to the next level. It cover all the major Office Applications and includes great code ready to be built and implemented. Not for the beginner but perfect for the System Admin or .Net developer looking to take their sharepoint skills to the next level.

SharePoint as an application development platform is long on potential, short on guidlines. Pro SharePoint Solution Development guides the user through applciation development techniques that leverage the infrastructure (security, doc management, database access, navigation) of SharePoint to deliver application functionality. This book does not assume the reader is an advanced .Net developer, nor does it treat the reader as brand new to the concepts of application development. It cuts directly to the use of built in features and the creation of custom features and how to bind them together to create solutions.

This book offers an indebt review of how SharePoint fits in the Microsoft Office ecosystem. It delivers a variety of advanced examples, richly illustrated with sample code, downloadable from Apress, and step by step instructions and illustrations in the book itself.

The organization of the book is very convenient and the first four chapters allow the reader to brush up his knowledge about MS Offices and SharePoint with abundant external links. Each consecutive chapter after that represents a standalone example based on a real-world scenario. The examples are focused on the integration with a particular MS Office product. For example Chapter 5 demonstrates a scenario where MS Word integrates with SharePoint and Chapter 9 shows how to construct PowerPoint slides using content stored in a SharePoint list. Every example starts with an introduction and walkthrough, which allows the reader to start reading the chapter directly without losing context.

The complexity of integrating products of the MS Office family in enterprise solutions requires quite a bit of knowledge and experience thus I do not recommend this book to beginners in SharePoint and MS Office programming. While this book has a plenty of introductory and historical information about MS Office development and SharePoint customization, it does not emphasize on important steps of professional SharePoint development such as creation of SharePoint solutions, list and site template customization and provisioning. However if you are already familiar with SharePoint (WSS 3, MOSS 2007) concepts such as solutions, features, workflow etc., this is the book to put all these features in the context of enterprise applications.

The software and hardware requirements for the examples in this book are quite high, so if you want to be able to implement them on your own you need to allocate some time to prepare a system with MOSS 2007, MS Office 2007 Enterprise, VS 2008 Professional or Team Edition and for the first example MS Office 2003. In addition there are several manual actions, which require a bit more time.

Something, which may not be obvious from the title, is the heavy use of the new MS Office document standard - Office Open XML (commonly referred to as OOXML or OpenXML). This was my first exposure to this format specification and I found its use throughout the book very useful.

Overall this book is of great value to intermediate and advanced developers, working on enterprise applications based on the MS Office system or integration projects with third party vendors. The examples can be read independently and each one of them not only demonstrates the implementation of a particular scenario, but also provokes ideas for other projects.

This is the 5th book on MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0 that I have bought so far and it is the best as far as SharePoint development. Each chapter after chapter 4 describes a real-world project for integrating SharePoint with Office. The book assumes that you already understand SharePoint development and .NET programming. You can download the code and I have not had any errors compiling it so far. The book makes heavy use of the System.IO.Packaging namespace and so there are many examples generating xml-based office documents. This book gets straight to the point with lots of code. I highly recommend it.

I am involved with SharePoint developer education so I buy and scan through every single SharePoint title when it becomes available. There are plenty of SharePoint books out today that all cover the same basic topics. This book was special because it had a significant amount of content that I have not seen anywhere else. In particular, I like the way this books explains how a developer can integrate Office 2007 office applications together with SharePoint 2007. It goes beyond the typical 'hello world' examples and offers plenty of gems that could only have been gathered from real-world experience rolling out projects in a production environment. Congrats to Ed and Susie!

I had little knowledge on the subject of AJAX, but this book enlightened me. I could scope out the capabilities of this technology by reading a few key chapters. Now I understand the AJAX used in the enterprise level application I now maintain, plus a lot more. If you're a .NET programmer, I think you'll like the way this material is presented.

Matt and Dan's ASP.NET AJAX book is an excellent one. It is packed with useful content, and contains a lot of great code examples that demonstrate real-world usage examples.

The book covers all of the core ASP.NET AJAX Scenarios:

- Server-Side Controls (UpdatePanel, UpdateProgress, etc)
- Client-side libraries
- Networking Stack
- Application Services
- AJAX Control Toolkit

Matt Gibbs is the development manager of ASP.NET at Microsoft, and led the ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 development team - so obviously knows his stuff well. Dan Wahlin is a great trainer and presenter of ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX. You are in very good hands with them.

I highly recommend this book.

Very well-organized, easy to follow and provided a great starting point for the ASP.NET AJAX framework. Even if you've been surfing the ASP.NET AJAX documentation you'll still pickup some good tips and information from this book.

I have nearly completed my first tour through the book. It is well-organized, written with considerable clarity, possesses a reasonable number of focused examples, and covers ALL the bases in good depth, including deployment and custom controls. Some very minor deficiencies are a scattered few forward references and a muddling of the details of JSON serialization when accessing web services, but the errata and future printings will hopefully clear these up soon.

Thua I strongly recommend it as the FIRST book to introduce yourself seriously to mainstream AJAX 2.0.

Just got a copy of this new book on ASP.NET AJAX and it looks great. It should be because Matt is the Development Manager for ASP.NET so he deeply understands the product. He has also worked on several other books and I can personally attest to the fact that he can indeed form complete sentences. ;-)
Seriously, this book is straight from the source and contains good, detailed information about the ASP.NET AJAX release that applies equally well today and in Visual Studio 2008

As with all O'Reilly books there's a great intro to the technologies. They take you through how it works, not just how to deploy some code. When you get to the XML-RPC modules, they don't force a solution on you, but give a great tour of what's available and let you pick. For me, the highlight was the intro to Randy J. Ray's RPC::XML modules (he's also one of the authors). I've been fighting with getting the 'system.*' handlers hacked in with other aproaches and it was great to see someone had already figured out such a clean approach. (Which is something since Perl can get reeeaaal ugly!) This book has saved me many days of wasted development.

And yet this book covers every aspect of web service development utilizing perl. As a long time user of the original Frontier::RPC2 module, things have come a long way, and with that greater complexity, the concepts have grown in scope considerably. This IS the book that you want to read if you REALLY want to understand SOAP and XML-RPC. From the XML DTD's to implementation code (either standalone applications or utilizing mod_perl) this book covers everything in between. In all it is a welcome addition to the O'Reilly family of Perl books.

As with all O'Reilly books there's a great intro to the technologies. They take you through how it works, not just how to deploy some code. When you get to the XML-RPC modules, they don't force a solution on you, but give a great tour of what's available and let you pick. For me, the highlight was the intro to Randy J. Ray's RPC::XML modules (he's also one of the authors). I've been fighting with getting the 'system.*' handlers hacked in with other aproaches and it was great to see someone had already figured out such a clean approach. (Which is something since Perl can get reeeaaal ugly!) This book has saved me many days of wasted development.

Some time ago, I purchased a different book: "Programming Web Services With SOAP" (ASIN: 0596000952), and my feeling - and that of many others - is that it was very weak. A decent view from 30,000 feet, but it was not very helpful to a perl developer thrown kicking and screaming into a project requiring XML and the use of SOAP::Lite. "Disappointment" was the best way to describe it.

But *THIS* is the book that the other one should have been - it's fantastic. It is chock-full of real live examples *with code*, the introductory and explanatory material is excellent, and the writing style is simply a joy to read.

In particular, the reference material for SOAP::Lite is very much welcome: it was written by the author of the code.

Five very glowing stars for this book.

Programming Web Services with Perl is principally a book on implementing solutions using XML-RPC and SOAP in Perl. It also covers complementary and alternative standards such as WSDL, UDDI, and REST in some detail. And on the periphery, it finishes with a whirlwind tour of developing message routing, alternative data encoding within XML, security, transactions, workflow, internationalization, service discovery, extension, and management techniques and specifications.

The book assumes the reader will have the knowledge of an intermediate level Perl programmer. I.e., the reader is assumed to have a working knowledge of references, data structures, and object-oriented Perl. On the other hand no previous knowledge of XML, XML-RPC, SOAP or XML related technologies is required.

It should also be mentioned that both of the authors Randy J. Ray and Pavel Kulchenko are also the principle developers of the most popular XML-RPC and SOAP Perl modules: XML::RPC and SOAP::Lite respectively. That said, the book is not a soap box for the authors to tout the merits of their tools.

Rather, it is a practical book which starts with grounding fundamentals. Readers should walk away with a core understanding of XML-RPC and SOAP and not just a particular tool set for working with them. The authors examine the alternative XML-RPC and SOAP tools, illustrate how they are used, and give practical and even handed reasons why their modules should be preferred. Which comes down to issues of features, active development, support, and the amount of work required to code to a particular interface. They then settle down to a comfortable and thorough guide to XML::RPC and SOAP::Lite.

The topics and issues are illustrated throughout using real world web services. For example creating an XML-RPC client for O'Reilly's Meerkat news wire, or a SOAP client to covert use.perl.org's journal stream to RSS. Code is presented to the reader filtered down to highlight each particular issue as it is discussed. This is nice in that it avoids listing slight variations of the same code multiple times, but on the down side it can also leave the reader flipping back and forth to reassemble an example in their head. Full code for each example is provided in the appendices. And all of the example code may be downloaded from O'Reilly at [their web site].

All-in-all, the book is a thorough practical introduction to working with XML-RPC, SOAP and related technologies. When I started reading the book, I was a bit disappointed to see that it only covered XML-RPC and SOAP related services. When I finished, I was impressed with how very much information they'd managed to pack into so few pages.

And yet, I was left wishing there'd been a more through coverage of interoperability issues between other SOAP implementations and things like custom de-serializers. To be honest interoperability and de-serialization are mentioned, and the authors do an excellent job of referring the reader on to sources for continued reading on most other topics.

The book does an admirable job balancing content, length, and information density. Not to mention an excellent job delivering the information that will still be relevant years and not just weeks from the date published. Most of the topics I'd wished to see covered in more depth are those that are still developing and consequently most likely to become quickly dated. In short a well balanced practical guide to applying XML-RPC and SOAP to solve problems.

While at first I thought O'Reilly's new "developer's notebook" series seemed a bit hokey, this book is extremely useful. It's concise and to the point, but full of good examples and information. A plus of the small size is that it's more to-the-point and cheaper than a typical O'Reilly book (which very often seem to ramble on and on about marginally useful information, seemingly in order to justify their $45+ price tags).

This book is the one that should have been written for Java Media Framework, if only that API had ever lived up to its expectations. If you want to add media to your application, and you are using Java, Quicktime is your best bet. However, note that if the Quicktime for Java API doesn't seem very Java-like or object-oriented at first glance, then that's probably because it's not. That is because with Quicktime for Java you are not working with pure Java. Instead, you're invoking a flat C API to create and manipulate C or Pascal data structures using a thin Java wrapper. If you can live with that and you still want to use Quicktime for Java, this book is the essential guide and tutorial you need to get up and running. The book does not waste your time with API printouts or a Java programming language tutorial. Instead, like all books in the Developer's Notebook series, it gets down to business quickly by demonstrating working Java code for a number of useful tasks when working with media.

First, it tutors you on how to set up Quicktime for Java on a Windows machine. This task is more complex than you would think, and this book hits the mark on the subject. Next, it shows you how to play movies and audio files from your Java program. Next, the book tackles the editing of movies from a Java application. This includes topics such as cutting, pasting, going to specific frames of a movie, and "flattening" a movie. In Chapter four, the programmer is introduced to working with Java components and importing and exporting graphics. In chapter five, the user is introduced to working with QuickDraw, the Apple-originated drawing API. This is essential, since QuickDraw is what is used to work with captured images. Thus in this chapter the reader is taught how to transfer data between images and a movie. Next, the art of capturing both video and audio is explored, including capturing audio and video to the same file. The chapter is rounded out with the code for a motion detector. Chapter seven is devoted entirely to audio media. There are particularly timely topics here, such as how to read information from MP3 and from iTunes AAC files, how to provide basic audio controls, and how to build an audio track from raw samples. Similar information is provided in a separate chapter for information specific to video media.The final chapter discusses the effects available in Quicktime for Java, as well as how to add text captions and timecodes to your media.

All in all, I think the Developer Notebook format works well for this subject. At the beginning of each chapter there is an outline of the topics to be covered. For each topic there is a "How Do I Do That?" section that includes a short piece of Java code that performs the specified task. There is also a sample of the output you would expect to see on the screen that should result from executing the code. Next there is a paragraph entitled "What Just Happened?" that explains the code just shown, and finally each topic usually ends with a "What about.." section that answers common questions you may have about extending the code just shown. All code in the book can be downloaded from the book's website at O'Reilly and Associates.

This book is essential reading for anybody who needs to understand how to code with Quicktime for Java, and it is far better than any other publication on the subject that I have encountered. Amazon does not show the table of contents for this book, so I do so for the purpose of completeness:
Chapter 1. GETTING UP AND RUNNING WITH QUICKTIME FOR JAVA
Setting Up QTJ on Windows
Embedding QuickTime in HTML
Preflighting a QTJ Installation
Compiling QTJ Code
Opening and Closing the QuickTime Session
Playing an Audio File from the Command Line
Chapter 2. PLAYING MOVIES
Building a Simple Movie Player
Adding a Controller
Getting a Movie-Playing JComponent
Controlling a Movie Programmatically
Showing a Movie's Current Time
Listening for Movie State-Changes
Moving Frame by Frame
Playing Movies from URLs
Preventing "Tasking" Problems
Chapter 3. EDITING MOVIES
Copying and Pasting
Performing "Low-Level" Edits
Undoing an Edit
Undoing and Redoing Multiple Edits
Saving a Movie to a File
Flattening a Movie
Saving a Movie with Dependencies
Editing Tracks
Chapter 4. WORKING WITH COMPONENTS
Specifying a Component's Type
Exporting Movies
Exporting Movies to Any Installed Format
Importing and Exporting Graphics
Discovering All Installed Components
Chapter 5. WORKING WITH QUICKDRAW
Getting and Saving Picts
Getting a Pict from a Movie
Converting a Movie Image to a Java Image
A Better Movie-to-Java Image Converter
Drawing with Graphics Primitives
Getting a Screen Capture
Matrix-Based Drawing
Compositing Graphics
Chapter 6. CAPTURE
Capturing and Previewing Audio
Selecting Audio Inputs
Capturing Audio to Disk
Capturing Video to Disk
Capturing Audio and Video to the Same File
Making a Motion Detector
Chapter 7. AUDIO MEDIA
Reading Information from MP3 Files
Reading Information from iTunes AAC Files
Providing Basic Audio Controls
Providing a Level Meter
Building an Audio Track from Raw Samples
Chapter 8. VIDEO MEDIA
Combining Video Tracks
Overlaying Video Tracks
Building a Video Track from Raw Samples
Chapter 9. MISCELLANEOUS MEDIA
Creating Captions with Text Media
Creating Links with HREF Tracks
Adding Timecodes
Creating Zero-Source Effects
Creating One-Source Effects (Filters)
Creating Two-Source Effects (Transitions)

This book is great!

This notebook makes all the QuickTime supported formats available to a Java developer. Like all the books in the notebook series, plenty of code, plenty of information to get up and running.

I really liked the information on reading the tag info from MP3s and AAC files, very useful.

Multimedia and Java made simple.

With this type of walkthrough book I usually expect to see just the basic features of the technology explored. This book goes surprisingly in-depth, covering topics like adding effects to playback, transforming movies during playback, overlays, and a wide variety of topics.

All that is crammed into a trim 200 page frame. This is achieved by concentrating mainly on the code, and effectively using a minimum of images. That's a trick given the graphics intensive nature of the topic.

This is not a book for beginners, it's a fast-paced walkthrough for experience developers who want something less referential than the JavaDocs.

With Apple changing QuickTime for Java so anything you made when
use QTJava under MacOSX Java1.3 no longer worked under Java1.4 these required changes to most of your older QTJava code- if you wanted to have your code now run under Java1.4. Apple also moved classes to a new packages so to make the developers nightmare complete. BUT DONT WORRY! This book will show you workarounds for them missing classes (sequence grabbing is back! what a gem). Also covers all your needs as a new developer to the powers of QTJava. Time to make your very own QuickTime player in a few hours! You won't believe the stuff QuickTime can do under the hood. This books covers just more and more stuff as you go though it.

For me this QuickTime for Java book will be sitting next to the older most excellent book from Bill Stewart. I hope all books become as clear and well written as this one from Chris Adamson- top work. Sample code all over the shop; step by step stuff. Cuts to the tasks you will have to tackle without lengthy messing around. Brilliant buy if you want to do cool hardcore design media in java. Or just play a nice sound track in the background of your killer application - maybe u want to make the next video editing studio app, or your own media player, or a streaming server, or a image editor, or or or; you want ta take a ride?

Then again don't buy it! I wont have a job to go to in the morning! :).