Computers and Internet Books

Perl is my workhorse language. I've written more Perl code, both personally and professionally, than any other language I've learned. Whenever I receive a new project, I immediately think of how I would accomplish it quickly in Perl. I've also been a fan of O'Reilly's "Hacks" series of books. When I heard of the marriage of Perl and O'Reilly's "Hacks" series in the book Perl Hacks, I knew I had to pick up a copy. It was a match made in heaven. The nature of Perl for terse, yet powerful constructs, and the hackish nature of the "Hacks" series makes for one of my favorite books in this series. The collection of articles in Perl Hacks are great for putting more productivity into your programming experience.

Those of you not familiar with O'Reilly's "Hacks" Series may need an introduction. The "Hacks" Series is an ever-growing set of books with focused attention on a particular topic, like Astronomy, Mental Improvement, or even Halo 2. The books are generally short, and contain article-length "hacks" of varying difficulty, noted by a thermometer next to the hack number and description. These "hacks" fall into several categories; the non-obvious solution to a problem, the performance improvement, and the "gee, I didn't know it could do that" oddity. What makes this series special compared with other books is the willingness to "void the warranty" on a particular product, and get straight to the internals, whether they lay in hardware or software. If something can be made better by opening the covers, or twiddling with the program layout, then its eligible for inclusion in these books. The series lends itself to a wide range of topics, and the format is great for a quick read, or for (my favorite) just randomly opening the book and reading what's there.

Perl Hacks is not a book that you'd find yourself reading straight through (although you do want to make sure you visit every hack in the book at least once). The book is divided into nine chapters: Productivity Hacks, User Interaction, Data Munging, Working with Modules, Object Hacks, Debugging, Developer Tricks, Know Thy Code, and Expand Your Perl Foo. There are 101 hacks in this book, ranging from the simple (Reading files backward, or managing your module paths) to the truly perverse (Replacing bad code without touching it by substituting the system-wide exit call with your own[...]. Each hack title is listed in the table of contents, with both the page number and the hack number. Each hack contains a graphic of a thermometer next to the number to show the relative difficulty of the hack (higher temperatures = more difficult hacks). There quite a variety of hacks placed throughout the book. Not once did I feel that the book was padded with something that really didn't belong in the book. If anything Perl Hacks opened my eyes to things that I would never have thought to do, but could easily see as being useful. I wouldn't have thought to create my own personal module bundles for moving my Perl programs between machines (I've always done it the old fashioned way: run, cpan install, repeat), but hack #31 makes it so "of course" that I'm thinking of including this in all of my Perl code that I ship. Hack #74 shows how to trace all of the modules your program uses (and all of their modules, too). Hack #52 is a simple hack ("Make Invisible Characters Apparent") but I can see this saving a developer or two some time when figuring out why their code isn't behaving properly. Of course, not all hacks in the book are productive (at least, not while you're programming). Hack #37, "Drink to the CPAN" is a drinking game you and your Perl buddies may want to try.

Perl Hacks is a short book, at less than 300 pages, but it's loaded with incredibly useful information. Much like the "Perl Cookbook" (also from O'Reilly) you'll find lots of useful items hidden in their pages. Many times I started with one hack, and finished the chapter reading the rest of the hacks because there were just that interesting. Perl Hacks is highly recommended for any Perl programmer to have on their programmer book shelf. Sure, you might be able to find some of the hacks out there on the net, but I think you'll find as I have that this is more of a go-to reference for finding out some of the more interesting corners of Perl.

I received this book as a token of appreciation for my contributions to
the 2006 Perl Advent Calendar. It's the first book I read as part of the
O'Reilly Hacks' series of books, and it proved to be a light yet informative and entertaining
read.

The book covers various useful "hacks" or small tricks that allow one to
achieve a lot of cool tasks when working with Perl. These tricks are unorthodox
and stretch the limit of one's Perl knowledge. Since they require an advanced
knowledge and understanding of Perl, I would recommend this book only for Perl
experts. Some of the B:: using modules were even too high-level for me to
understand how they worked internally. However, I understood the purpose of the
code in all cases, even if I didn't understand the code itself.

So it is a recommended read for people who've worked with Perl a lot,
and wish to learn many new and useful tricks. Perl Hacks for Perl hackers,
indeed!

From the title, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Perl Hacks. Was it going to be about rummaging around in Perl's internals? Making Perl do clever, yet ultimately dumb and pointless tricks? It turns out that, while there is some fairly voodooish material here, some of it quite playful, on the whole it's a very practical book. Aimed firmly at the advanced Perl programmer who knows when it's appropriate to mess about with the symbol table, temporarily turn off warnings, or crack out one of the B:: modules, this is a collection of 101 suggestions to improve your productivity, boggle your mind about what Perl can do, or both.

The content reminds me a little of the likes of Exceptional C++ Style, a mixture of advanced best practices, and things which you may not need to know, but you'll probably still be interested in finding out how it works. For instance, have you ever considered tieing an array or hash variable to a function? Ever wanted to name a supposed anonymous subroutine? Print out the source code as well as the line number of a syntax error? Nor me, but Perl Hacks shows how it could be useful. These are illustrative of the spirit of the book.

My favourite material was probably the chapter on modules. Included are how-tos for outputting all the modules used in a package, automatically reloading modules in running code, shortening long package names with the CPAN 'aliased' module, and making up your own bundle of modules for easy installation. There's also an interesting object chapter with subjects such as: inside out objects, using YAML for serialisation, using traits and autogeneration of accessors.

Additionally, there's a little on using those scary B:: packages, using modules which use the B:: packages or other dark magic (e.g. peeking inside closures), some fairly hardcore tracing and profiling, that touches on some Perl VM internals. Also worth mentioning is the hack that hijacks the angle bracket glob operator to create Haskell/Python-style list comprehensions.

You are going to have to be one scarily gifted Perl hacker not to find something useful or at least thought-provoking at regular intervals throughout this book. My only complaint is that the hack format, which the blurb on the back of the book describes as a "short lesson", does not lend itself equally well to all hacks. While I liked the chapter on objects, some of the hacks (in particular the traits hack, some of the testing material) were too short.

If you like the sound of a book that's somewhere between Perl Cookbook, Perl Best Practices and the second edition of Advanced Perl Programming, you're going to love this.

In a time when new computer languages are dime a dozen, perl unquestionably retains its beauty. Keeping with the philosophy of perl - there is more than one way to do it - the book shows you ingenious ways to work with this powerful language. This is a true hacks book and meant mostly for the advanced user. Before reading this book, I didn't even realize what I didn't know and I rate myself just short of contributing to CPAN. Even if you have read all the popular books - Perl Programming, Perl Best Practices etc. you'll still find a lot of gems.

Simply put if you like perl, you'll love this book. Welcome to the next level...

To be completely honest, this isn't the book I thought it was going to be. Most O'Reilly Hacks books start off pretty simply and in a few chapters take you to the further reaches of their subject area. Whilst this is a great way to quickly get a good taste of a particular topic, it has the occasional disadvantage that for subjects that you know well, the first couple of chapters can seem a bit basic. As I know Perl pretty well, I thought I would be on familiar ground for at least half of the book.

I was wrong.

Oh, it started off easily enough. Making use of various browser and command line tools to get easy access to Perl documentation, creating some useful shell aliases to cut down typing for your most common tasks. "Oh yes", I thought smugly to myself, "I know all that". But by about Hack 5 I was reading about little tweaks that I didn't know about. I'd start a hack thinking that I knew everything that the authors were going to cover and end up frustrated that I was on the tube and couldn't immediately try out the new trick I had just learnt.

It's really that kind of book. Pretty much everyone who reads it will pick up something that will it easier for them to get their job done (well, assuming that their job involves writing Perl code!) And, of course, looking at the list of authors, that's only to be expected. The three authors listed on the cover are three of the Perl communities most respected members. And the list of other contributers reads like a who's who of people who are doing interesting things with Perl - people whose use.perl journals are always interesting or whose posts on Perl Monks are worth reading before other people's. Luckily, it turns out that all these excellent programmers can also explain what they are doing (and why they are doing it) very clearly.

Like all books in the Hacks series, it's a little bitty. The hacks are organised into nine broad chapters, but the connections between hacks in the same chapter can sometimes be a bit hard to see. But I enjoyed that. In places it made the book a bit of a rollercoaster ride. You're never quite sure what is coming next, but you know it's going to be fun.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more apt the fairground analogy seems. When you ask Perl programmers what they like about Perl, you'll often hear "fun" mentioned near the top of the list. People use Perl because they enjoy it. And the authors' enjoyment of Perl really comes through in the book. It's obvious that they really wanted to show people the things that they thought were really cool.

Although I did learn useful tips from the earlier part of the book, it was really the last three chapters that were the most useful for me. Chapter 7, Developer Tricks, had a lot of useful things to say about testing, Chapter 8, Know Thy Code, contains a lot of information on using Perl to examine your Perl code and Chapter 9, Expand Your Perl Foo was a grab-bag of obscure (but still useful) Perl tricks.

So where does this book fit in to O'Reilly's Perl canon? I can't recommend it for beginners. But if you're a working Perl programmer with a couple of years' experience then I'd be very surprised if you didn't pick up something that will be useful to you. And don't worry about it overlapping with other books in your Perl library - offhand I can't think of anything in the book that has been covered in any previous Perl book.

All in all, this would make a very useful addition to your Perl library.

Instead of reading this book from front to back I read the sections as needed. PHP isn't the only language I dabble in so I haven't had many opportunities to go through the book but the sections I have read are very well written, informative and easy to read.

I would say this book could be utilized by a novice or experienced PHP programmer. The author covers topics starting advanced enough not to bore the hell out of the experienced and thorough enough not to loose the novice.

I'm a bit of a novice PHP programmer still, and I found this book accessible and useful. The scripts are well commented, well explained, I have found them to be secure thus far (I have limited knowledge here but they seem to adhere to best practices), and I can find what I want quickly. When they have special needs like JavaScript or something, they explain why afterward. Each script also has a "How It Works" section afterward. Before each script, they have intro paragraphs saying what is needed in order for it to work, such as a pre-created directory or something.

I can recommend this book to other PHP programmers at the novice/beginner level as well as the more advanced levels.

Generally, I'm not a big fan of cookbooks (for programming!) but this one is really good. A great reference to have as you are coding and think "oh... how do i do X again?" or just to read and review. Another use - give a copy to your friends who STILL are writing PHP 4 code!

I highly recommend this book. It covers all aspects of PHP 5, including OOP, without getting bogged down. Though this book consists of contributions from four authors, it comes together as one smooth read. Its full of examples and hits its mark very effectively. It makes a great companion to the Zend PHP 5 Certification Guide. Well done!!

I normally don't write reviews unless I had a bad experience. However, in this case, the PHP 5 Recipes book is an exception! I love this book! The examples are CORRECT!! The information I need is very well organized - I really love the way that the book was organized! I wish all of my tech books for other languages were arranged in this problem-solution manner. The information you need to build a robust and well organized and valid website is here in the book! I definitely highly recommend that you get THIS book if you are thinking about doing some php work. The php code they have is on the mark! The authors included more than I needed by including a section on XML/XSLT with PHP. Definitely get this book!

I have purchased many books on web site design and usability, most of them more expensive than this one, and yet this book is the one with worn pages because I go back to it again and again. Many "how to" books give you plenty of tips but never tell you what to do with them. Not this one! This book gives you sound, no-nonsense advice about what works on web sites and what doesn't. Part 1 clearly explains the "hows and whys" of crucial web site elements, while Part 2 tells you how to put what you learned in action. And as if that's not enough, you also get real life examples of how it all comes together, whether you're selling products, are a one-person show working out of a home office, or a large corporation. I was so impressed with the level of knowledge demonstrated in this book that I recently participated in Marcia Yudkin's (the author's) Web Marketing Makeover mentoring program. If you want your web site to bring in business you should read this book and religiously apply what you learn.

I don't normally do reviews or read work-related books, so this has been an interesting process. After all, I sweated through college, marketing qualifications and I've run an internet business for three years, so why do I need to read what some American who I've never heard of thinks - after all, its not really relevant to a UK-based business... Wrong!

What a great book - I had to keep putting it down to make notes on changes needed for my sites. Marcia thinks about this stuff all the time, whereas most of us don't, and she really takes apart the whole site and marketing process. It's all about the detail, about how the site visitor sees our offer, one that we are over-familiar with but so often fail to get over in a few seconds. It is when you realise how massively you could increase the return on your objectives by making simple changes (what are the objectives of your website, by the way?) that you realise the power of this book.

Marcia takes you though all the elements of your site, step by step - why you have one, what you want it to do, the copy, design, style and real nuts-and-bolts stuff. Throughout she illustrates her point with screen shots of hundreds of sites - and there are some very well known ones in there that still fail to fully exploit the opportunity. Plus, a selection of make-overs - some seem minor, but have documented results, for example, $24,000 of extra sales in one month. Her style is very open, non-technical and moves at a pace that doesn't make assumptions on acronyms, jargon and your physical location - so often US books seem irrelevant to overseas readers. There are also lots of references to further reading, for example, on copy-writing, too many sites just lift pre-approved copy from printed brochures that fails in a new medium.

So, who should read it? Me, again, for a start. With specialist sections or even whole chapters for professional practices, membership or charitable organisations, local small businesses like B&Bs, organisations selling single or multiple products, there really is something for everyone. If you're the owner of a business, or the person that's directly responsible for websites in a business, you'll find it a useful read. Why not buy it for a colleague to read and report back on if you can't spare the time yourself? And the key point is change will not cost big money, so you really can see a return on modest spending - a couple of hundred pounds will make a difference to most sites. Perhaps that's the acid test of the book: whether you actually do anything after reading it that in turn actually pays off. If you don't do anything at all, then I think you've missed the point.

One thing that may put you off is the legend `Poor Richard's' across the top of the book and the cover style - I've no idea who Richard is, nor his pecuniary standing and the folksy cover may suggest the book's audience is low-budget, but this does it a disservice. Its also not expensive - ...

So, in summary, the chapters that make up 200 pages of readable and thought-provoking writing, are organised in two parts - site elements and then implementation. I make no apologies for including the chapter headings as they help illustrate the breadth and relevance of this book: Elements: the name plate; navigation/on-site searches; copy; who are we?; building trust; content as bait; gathering leads/members/subscribers; order forms/customer service and graphics/layout. Putting it all together: single product sales; multi-product sales; solo service provider; professional firm; advocacy organisation; event reservations; local businesses and internet services. This is followed by a makeover checklist and pages of further resources in print and online. Go on, read it, implement it and reap the rewards - and tell me if I'm wrong!

Mark Wibberley ...

There are so many books on designing websites available today that it is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume. Among these it is rare to find one that really stands out from the crowd. Marcia Yudkin's "Website Marketing Makeover" is an exception to this rule. She avoids a lot of the fluff that tends to be in other books and gets right down to the nitty-gritty of website design. One of the things that I particularly liked about the book is that she not only provides advice but also provides the means to actually accomplish the goal. For example, most of the website design books discus the need to see what your website looks like using different browsers. Marcia's book also makes this very important point. However, she not only makes the point but also points the reader to software and websites that can help determine what your website looks like in different browsers. When other books are saying what to do without telling you how to do it, Marcia is showing you how.

From beginning to end, Marcia lucidly explains what works, what doesn't work, and why. Although it is predominantly focused on how to "turn visitors into buyers" and so is most appropriate for a site that sells something, there is a lot of information that is also appropriate for any site including purely informational ones. "Poor Richard's Website Marketing Makeover" is a highly recommended read for anyone looking to create or improve their website.

I have been procrastinating in upgrading our website so I figured I'd read a few books... a great way to procrastinate some more. Well Marcia writes in a step by step practical way, creating a marketing foundation first then getting to the beef. I'm now educated and inspired, have a notebook full of notes and ideas that I'm actually implementing. It's getting done. I'm actually recommending this book to friends who are redoing their marketing message since the first two chapters do that so well... great book, not heavy, beefy info.

My mind is spinning; this book is awesome! I have been successfully selling on the web for 2 years and have even paid some "big names" to critique my site, but I have found TONS of ideas and changes I need to implement as soon as possible. Ms. Yudkin writes in a specific, down-to-earth manner; her suggestions make SENSE and she includes many before-and-after examples. The advice in this book will undoubtedly save me time and increase my sales.

All the information you need in one place to quickly and efficently secure your networks and computers . Easy to read and understand but yet very technical in nature. Highly recommended for all levels of users from students to professionals.

This is a very comprehensive Internet security book that details the nuts and bolts of the problems and solutions in elbow-deep detail. It also addresses specific causes of the issues we face; from government interventions and plans to terrorism and crime motivations. Great book, I highly recommend it.

Internet security is critical to most modern organizations--which have systems links across enterprisewide networks and VPNs, as well as exposure to customers, competitors, browsers, and hackers. This practical guide to Internet security provides the means for such organizations to effectively protect their sites from internal and external threats. It provides real-life scenarios and examples, as well as hands-on instruction for securing Internet communications.

So many Internet security books focus on theory and concepts but miss the practical aspects of security. This book gives it all to you, theory, concepts and practical steps you can take to deal with Internet security. I highly recommend it.

John Vacca has done it again. He has not only made a complex technology easy to understand, he also identifies the pitfalls and solutions that one has to be aware of in order to survive in this ever increasing world of network hacking, terrorism and identify theft. The book is extremely well organized and very consistent in the way it describes the various Internet and Intranet technologies, and the security issues and solutions associated with them. This book is a must for operating system and network managers, as well as information technology specialists that must develop and maintain distributed data management applications that operate in secure environments.

As a professional db developer, I found this book from Rick Dobson to be an excellent guide to getting you on your way with Access using SQL Server as the back end. This a rite of passage for many Access developers, like me, who find SQL Server kind of intimidating. Rick takes you through every step of the way very logically, preparing you for your next benchmark. He thoughtfully anticipates your next question with a paragraph or two that explains the reasons why you're doing what you're doing and how to do it. No smarmy digressions, bad jokes or confusing examples. Highly recommended reading for IT developers who want to get to the next level of database development. Great job, Rick!

By far the best book I have seen regarding the difficulties encountered when moving an Access application to SQL Server. Until reading this book, I couldn't figure out why my Access queries that were 'converted' into Stored Procedures could not reference each other, why my forms would not work, why the tables weren't updateable (primary keys weren't copied during conversion), etc.
All these and many more perplexing issues are clearly explained here. For quickest results, read Appendices B and C, then the first 7 chapters before trying to convert your first Access database to SQL Server.

Having spent a number of years using Access to develop commercial solutions I recently moved on to Access projects and found this book a real find in getting up and running in a short space of time. Covering each topic in logical chunks I found it to be more than a good grounding in the subject. It is also well written in plain English and avoids the unnecessary complications that are often found in such books and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is considering developing Access projects.

I have years of experience in programming but knew nothing about Access, SQL or VBA when I got my latest assignment. I can't stand those 1000 page books that want to hold me by the hand while I build some simple-minded application through eight chapters. I just need to know the basics quick and then see a few examples of some typical tasks. This book is just what I needed to quickly get me up to speed and working on my own application. There are a few minor differences with Access XP (like changed menus) so you'll need a good XP reference also. I recommend this book to any developer that needs to come up to speed quickly on either SQL or Access.

I just received this book so I cannot comment on its technical merits. However, I have noticed the book is littered with spelling errors and errors in general. Examples are (1) On page 11 "As but this architecture won't be specifically considered furhter".. and yes, I included all the spelling typos. (2) On page 19 "if you had an Access poject" instead of "project." Isn't this what spell checkers are made for? There is at least one more error that I glanced over but did not record. And I have only read to page 19! My experience has been when a book contains many typos then then code should be suspect. I hope not, because a good Access 2000 to SQL book is needed. Caveat emptor!! Paul

I've been using QuickTime for nearly ten years, and have often been frustrated when trying to explain to people that it is not just for video and sound any more. The frustration stems from the lack of examples and explanations to use these powerful features for non-programmers. This book changes that. It explains clearly and wittily how to use QuickTime to enhance your website or CD-ROM, and take advantage of over 10 years of cutting-edge digital media technology for free.

[Full disclosure - I work for Apple on the QuickTime Engineering team, and know the author - believe me I wouldn't endorse this book if it wasn't great]

This book is a must have if you plan on working with QuickTime to make multimedia content available! I call this book 'a rare find', as it is great for beginner through master, leaving few questions unanswered or stones unturned. The text is a good mix of "how to" information combined with "tips and tricks" to get your implementations to work.

I purchased this book for its material regarding steaming content over the Internet, and learned a great deal in the process. The chapter on QuickTime VR answered my "how do they do that?" questions, and has led me to explore the use of this technique for my upcoming projects.

The QuickTime VR chapter is a good example of the depth of knowledge used to develop this text, as it gives in-depth information on photography techniques that only a mid- to experienced photographer would know.

My only criticism of the book is that it only begins to explore about half of the knowledge needed to set up your own streaming web server, but I can hardly fault the authors for that -- it says right on the cover "A Hands-On Guide for Webmasters, Site Designers, and HTML Authors." It says nothing about being aimed at System or Network Administrators. If your main interest in this book is the setup of streaming servers, you might want to consider another book (or better yet, purchase this book along with another to round out your knowledge).

With the ... QuickTime Pro included, I can say without reservation that this is one of the best computer book values I have ever purchased. The book paid for the rest of the cost by showing me how to trick Microsoft Internet Explorer / Windows Media Player in such a way that it will not try to open your .mov files (great in a Windows-dominated environment)!

Highly recommended, even if you have only a passing interest in QuickTime.

This is an important resource for anyone who is serious about maximizing the potential of Quicktime. At Rayhawk.com we have been using this book to enhance our web productions and the results have been noticable, not only to us, but to our clients (KFC, Taco Bell, BMW, Porsche).

The book is full of useful info and the author is fun and helpful. He assumes we have little prior knowledge with either QuickTime or HTML and by the end of the book, he teaches us how to produce some amazing content.

Mastering QuickTime is essential to quickly and easily building exciting, dymamic and interactive web sites. This book (QuickTime for the Web) is essential to mastering QuickTime for the web. It has saved me more time and energy than any book I've bought in the last two years.

This book is a must have! From how to create VR with interactive sounds and sprites - to getting your video or photos streaming on the web - this book shows you how. As a web master of a site with over 100 different Virtual Reality and QT movies, I found this book (and the free tools and interactive sprites for my use) to be invaluable. I reccommend it without hestitation. Luke Wonderly, Web master - vrbakersfield.com

Juniper already provides excellent technical documentation for their products. Having gone through Juniper's PDFs I expected this book to offer something new. By the time I got to chapter three I realized I'm reading the same content, just worded differently. This book offers nothing other than having a printed book instead of a PDF.

This is well written and well organized book. It is truly written for firewall engineers. Its configuration and troubleshooting examples are very helpful to the real problems. The discussion section and tips are particular useful if you want to know the inside stories of screenOS. This book is a must have for anyone who is working in Netscreen firewall at any level.

The writing is superb! And I love the Problem |Solution |Discussion sections of each chapter. It gives great every day problem and solution. I've been working on a large VPN project and this book is EXCELLENT from start to finish. It explains very well in details about VPN - in our case we also had integrated wireless; policy-based routing, BGP, RIP, content security (ICAP; URL filtering), NAT, QoS, VoIP (Avaya & Cisco), firewall and user authentication (802.1x). You can't get any more complicated than our VPN infrastructure - yet the book explains extremely well every aspect of those features in great details. Plus it was a very easy read! I highly recommend this book if you're serious about deploying VPN and firewalls. Great stuff.

This is a must-have book for anyone managing Juniper firewalls. The writing style is very accessible and to the point. The book is organized so you can jump right to the information you are looking for without reading it from cover to cover. Highly recommended.

Simply put, anyone who is currently evaluating or managing ScreenOS based Firewalls should own this book and have it close by.

The 1st chapter of the book alone shows the most useful commands that every administrator needs to know. It also details the architecture of ScreenOS which is the key to creating and implementing a relevant security policy in any network.

The book is well written and organized with CLI commands in bold and CLI responses in plain text which make it easy to differentiate what the user should be typing and what they should be seeing. (There are also some GUI screen shots in the book as well.) The book has excellent examples of packet walks, O.S. Architecture, and network diagrams.

A huge benefit of the book is that it doesn't bore the user with the history of the Internet or TCP/IP, etc. It jumps right in to specific examples and configuration guidelines relevant to what the chapter is trying to cover. The book is also very current and covers almost the latest version of ScreenOS. A great example is that there is an excellent chapter on configuring NSRP (HA) with Dynamic Routing Protocols (to sync routes from DRP's) and how that is configured in ScreenOS 6.0 which was the first release to support that feature. ScreenOS 6.0 is a very current release of ScreenOS.

As a user of ScreenOS for 5 years, I can absolutely say this book will be a welcome addition to my library!

Last note: Chapter 21 covers VSYS or Virtual Systems which is a major strength of ScreenOS and not well understood by many users. That chapter alone makes the book worth the cost.

This is a very useful book with a lot of good, practical ideas. It is well written and understandable. It is easy to use; it is divided into one or two-page sections ("Optimize Title Tags," "Article Directory Submissions," etc.) so you can carry out one suggestion at a time, as you have the time. It would be useful to people who do not know HTML, but it is most useful to those who do know it.

I am so lucky to initally have found this book at our small public library. It is inforamtive, well written, and well designed.
Thanks for bringing me up to speed so quickly and easily. I didn't even know what PPC, CTR , or the other basics of internet marketing was!
Kia

I browsed through this book at the local book store and was immediately impressed by the quality of information presented. The reason for my 4 star rating is that after I bought the book and started getting into the details, I found that some of the websites mentioned were not functional anymore. I found 2-3 links like that. But other than that I think that this is one book in SEO that every webmaster should own.

As the owner of a web design firm that offers a growing bundle of SEO services, I have spent thousands of dollars staying up-to-date with the latest strategies for search engine optimization.

But despite the big-name conferences I've attended, this $30 book is the best investment I've made in SEO.

The author does a phenomenal job of covering every phase of the process. In fact, I hit Amazon this evening, because I'm buying 4 more copies that will be distributed to every part of my team... 1 for our lead web programmer, 1 for the people doing keyword research, 1 for our copywriter and 1 for the people who focus on link building strategies. There's stuff in here from which everybody can benefit.

I also appreciate how it's organized. If you like text - there's a section in each chapter with text. If you prefer pictures, the second part of each chapter is chock full of diagrams and images that would allow somebody to learn a lot with minimal reading.

I highly recommend this book.

I have never met Kris Jones, but know many people in the Internet marketing industry who have a lot of respect for him. I actually own an Internet marketing company, [...], and one of the services we offer is Internet marketing training.

We have created our own materials that we use in our training programs, but we are now making plans to use this book instead. The book is filled with the same information that we teach every day to our customers, but the way that it is laid out is extremely easy to understand and implement.

The last thing I must say is that Kris isn't a "feel good" kind of guy. He says it how it is. Internet marketing is an extremely time consuming thing and he tells you that. There are no "black hat" techniques taught that will get you banned from the SERPS.

This book could (and really should) be used in college level marketing degree curriculum's.

This is an excellent walkthrough of Skype all the way from getting started to using special phones and other VoIP appliances. I'm impressed by the depth of the coverage, and the quality of the writing. This is easily the best book I've seen on Skype.

"Skype Me" is an excellent book for both beginners and advanced users of this free Voice over IP (VoIP) application. With easy instructions for downloading, installing, and using on any system, Skype is remarkably effective, but simple. It allows you to talk by voice in computer-to-computer conversations, conferencing, and even video capabilities with the necessary security features to protect your conversations.
This "family and friends" phone plan could put the phone companies out of business - except to bring us the DSL line. I've seen my wife use Skype to conference with her local partner and their Australian customer.
While basics are great, there's plenty here for the more advanced users including using Skype with other hardware and software (eg, wireless devices like cell phones). The authors also walk you through the security aspects of Skype - absolutely necessary these days.
Overall, a great book to own and keep handy as a reference for expanding your cyber knowledge.

Skype is a simple to implement Voice Over IP (VOIP) solution for the average computer user. If you are tired of long-distance charges, want to be able to tell when someone is online and you can call them, chat in a secure, encrypted environment, engage in video chatting with others, or call someone who has a regular phone system at substantially reduced rates then Skype may be the product you need. This book covers installation, configuration, and basic usage as well as configuring advanced features and personalizing your Skype. While this is useful, I found the software to be so user friendly that it was easy to figure out most of this by just exploring the basic options of the system. That being said Chapters seven and eight were well worth the price of the book by themselves. These chapters cover software and hardware add-ons that can greatly enhance your Skype system and make it work the way you would like it to. The final two sections of the book cover setting up Skype in a business environment and writing custom interfaces to it by accessing the Skype API. This section includes important information on how to set up Skype behind a firewall. Skype Me is a highly recommended purchase and a great way to access the VOIP world for anyone with a computer and good Internet access speed.

Skype Me! is a book that everyone needs to have. It's less technical than Skype Hacks, which makes it more accessible to non-techies. Gough starts off with basic lessons about VoIP, Peer-to-peer technology (as it's used in VoIP), even Skype security. These basics will help anyone who is looking at setting up Skype in their home.

Installation is covered in Chapter 2. Gough gives detailed instructions on testing individual computers setups to make sure that Skype will work properly, and shows how to install Skype on Windows, Pocket PC, Mac OS X, and Linux. Then, in chapter 3, he covers the basics of using Skype.

Gough spends a lot of time on using Skype from Pocket PCs, even Pocket PC cell phones and smart phones. This is something I'd never thought about, honestly - my cell phone bill is pretty small, and we've got a good family plan. I can see where people who use a lot of cell phone minutes each month could save some money.

Skype Me! also goes into detail when it comes to implementing Skype in a business setting. This is one area where I think that Skype is being under-utilized. There's a perception that Skype is for home users, but isn't powerful enough for enterprise use, but it's clear that Skype is a lot more powerful than people think. There's a lot of potential for business use - especially when you look at the call center hack that I mentioned in the review of Skype Hacks.

One disappointment I had with Skype Hacks was that it didn't really talk much about the Skype API. Skype Me! does this in chapter 14, and goes into enough detail that people with a computer background will be able to take advantage of the API in customizing their own installation of Skype. Skype Me! also goes into more detail in discussing the various Skype-enabled devices that are available, or will soon become available. Gough includes mini-reviews of a lot of popular Skype hardware add-ons that will make your Skype experience much more pleasant - and productive.

For new users, Skype Me! is a valuable addition to their library. The fact that Michael Gough is the guy who runs SkypeTips.com and is constantly adding material at that site is just another reason to get this book.

Skype Me! is the perfect introduction to Skype for users of all skill levels. It could serve as an example of how to write a product-centric book that delivers real value. The text is well written, clear, and focused. The material becomes progressively complex as the reader moves from learning about Skype, to installing it, to using it, to extending it into areas I hadn't previously considered. Anyone who wants to get the most out of Skype should read Skype Me!

I believe Skype is an incredibly intuitive and simple piece of software. I didn't spend much time with the first four chapters of the book, since I think the ease of installing and using Skype is one of its main attractions. Beginning with Ch 5, however, author Michael Gough started expanding my sense of what could be done by Skype. With advanced features in Ch 6, software add-ons in Ch 7, and hardware accessories in Ch 8, I was entering new territory. The material was well-covered.

I have no real concerns with Skype Me! I have a minor issue with the author's suggestion on p 270 that using a 900 MHz cordless phone is a sign they need to be "upgraded". A 900 MHz cordless phone is a great way to avoid interference in the 2.4 GHz range used by modern wireless networks and newer cordless phones. I would have also liked some expert commentary by a security professional regarding controlling Skype in the enterprise.

Overall I highly recommend Skype Me! I would feel comfortable sharing this book with my parents as a way to encourage them to try Skype. I would also share it with friends who want to tinker at the edges of traditional Skype usage.

I own a lot of books on NT Server (too many in fact) and this is one of my favorites. Anyone responsible for the support of NT Server should have this book without question. Curt Aubley has produced a book that is easy to digest yet comprehensively covers all aspects of optimizing NT Server in your own environment.

It includes many ideas and suggestions that you can implement immediately and see true performance gains. If you've ever wondered, "What RAID configuration would be best for my new application server?" or "Which performance monitor counter is really the best to use to monitor this or that?", then this book is definitely for you.

Let's hope Curt produces a similar book of the same quality for Windows 2000. This book sits right beside Mastering Windows NT Server by Mark Minasi on my desk, and between the two of these and Technet, one doesn't need much more to support an enterprise Windows NT 4.0 environment.

I've been very impressed with the results of implementing what I've learned from this book. I've used the techniques at a few different Fortune 500 companies, and all my clients have been very satisfied. I would reccomend this book to anyone who takes tuning Windows NT for the Enterprise seriously.

This is the best written book I have read to date. It starts out like it should...what to do if you don't want to read the whole book. I have suggested this book to many of my friends and they have the same feeling. Great Job Curt !!!! Publish another one !!!!

Mr. Aubley's book is an excellent technical resource which addresses the difficult task of correctly sizing NT Server implementations and also how to tune NT for maximum performance with regards to various hardware and software considerations. Mr. Aubley explains the complex tasks succinctly and concisely and draws on many obvious years of experience to present hands-on solutions and case studies for reference. I would recommend this book to any NT admin that is responsible for scaling NT beyond humble file and print services. It has presented approaches to the tasks at hand that I have successfully used to effect client solutions.

I own a lot of books on NT Server (too many in fact) and this is one of my favorites. Anyone responsible for the support of NT Server should have this book without question. Curt Aubley has produced a book that is easy to digest yet comprehensively covers all aspects of optimizing NT Server in your own environment.

It includes many ideas and suggestions that you can implement immediately and see true performance gains. If you've ever wondered, "What RAID configuration would be best for my new application server?" or "Which perfmon counter should I use to monitor this or that?", then this book is definitely for you.

Let's hope Curt produces a similar book of the same quality for Windows 2000. This book sits right beside Mastering Windows NT Server by Mark Minasin on my desk, and between the two of these and Technet, one doesn't need much more to support an enterprise Windows NT 4.0 environment.