Computers and Internet Books

The authors have done an admirable job in making this complex topic approachable by readers with a basic understanding of networks. The coverage of cryptography was just enough to support the discussions on WEP cracking. I particularly enjoyed the step-by-step description of actual attacks. The overview of existing tools was also very good, though I detected a certain bias towards Microsoft solutions. Overall, this great book has earned an important place on my bookshelf. Kudos.

Impressive. Having bought a couple other bunk books that included useless stuff, I was happy to finally own a book that covered current WLAN hack/protection techniques from beginning to end.

Definitely a good buy...heck, it even includes a CD full of the tools needed.

Maximum Wireless Security has everything you need to know about wireless security and insecurity.

I was quite impressed with the books breadth and depth.

This is advanced wardriving. Good points: Explains step by step how to crack WEP. The source code examples were well annotated. It also details which 802.11 wireless parts you need to order to get started.

This book is great! My employer has had me researching wireless networks for some time now and this book has outlined the necessary information for me to get going on a deployment. The examples are clear and easy to understand, and a good portion of the tools they talk about are included on the CD. This one has definitely found a home on my book shelf!

This book is certainly useful for any students attempting a project on ASP.NET coz it provides many examples. It's very handy when I used it for my teaching too.

I'm experienced in HTML, SQL, VBScript, VBA, etc. but I've never really had to create something with a 'real' user interface. I've done lots of quick and dirty data fixes when something bad would happen with payroll or billing or whatever. I put up a personal webpage with pics of my friends and family, yada, yada, yada.... Anyways this book helped me take all that disparate knowledge and apply it to a real user interface. The book has lots of examples and Web Matrix is a good place for a beginner to start, Visual Studio is overwhelming.

The hardest part of all is deploying your website. The author explains how to host your own website which I was not even going to try to attempt but it is helpful to understand the process. He gives a brief overview of deploying to a remote server which is all anyone could ever do, each hosting service is different. Choose your service carefully, ask friends, co-workers, people who have already done it. Not all hosting services are equal. Turns out the service I was using that claimed to support asp.net only sort of did. Lot's of sweat and tears to finally get them to tell me that. Soooo get this book, do the examples and then for practice use aspSpider.net to deploy your site. It's free for people like me who just need the practice. They have a forum that was very helpful to me.

I rarely give reviews to books (much less five-star reviews), namely because I am not easily impressed. THIS book is one of those rare gems - especially in the computer industry - that appears to have been well-written and proof-read.

I have actually walked through this book, followed the instructions, and produced the desired result. I have learned a great deal in doing so, and I don't feel like the author assumed too little (or too much) was in my noggin to start with.

I also found the book to be quite informative during periods when I was without-computer (such as train commutes or potty breaks).

THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE for Mike Pope. May his tribe (and future book projects) increase!

I just have this book for 4 days ago and now I already completed the first 4 chapters. The books is well written and easy to be understand with a good example. The person who plan to read this book shoud have some knowledge relate to HTML and Visual basic (6.0 or .Net is preffered). All of the sample project and example in this books is prepare in VB.NET. If you are working with C#.Net and plan to build a dynamic website, don't buy this book. Finally, I recommend this book who plan to build a dynamic website from the first step.

A must have for everybody starting to learn how to build dynamic web pages. Well written chapters with easy to follow step by step instructions create a great book!
If you have no experience in building web pages this is the place you should start.

This book, published in 1997, is a real beauty. In May 2000 as I installed Exchange 2000 I needed to trouble-shoot SMTP at a low level. Chapter 2 with its instructions on how to roll your own SMTP session using nothing but telnet helped me find an access problem that had eluded me for days.

Understanding DNS was also a snap with this book. Banging around with ping still is an essential check on installation integrity when setting up servers and workstations. The common, low-level utilities, including system sniffers and logs, are nicely explained throughout the book.

The book is only 234 pages and many of the details on Exchange 4.0/5.0 will not be of interest for much longer. However, the essentials of Internet SMTP mail are covered so clearly that this book is one that I will retain in my library for a long time.

The book is lots of fun for those who like to hack away from the DOS prompt (and a bit beyond). However, if you think "ping" is something that goes with "pong," you can skip this one.

This book is concise, engaging, and informative. The author is clearly above par in his ability to define what is going on in the back ground of Exchange without boring you to death. And if your not familiar with the internals of POP3 and SMTP messenging, theres some interesting hands on with Telnet. A MUST HAVE BOOK for anyone starting to learn Exchange.

This book is a refreshing change from the 700 page "cover-it-all" titles. It's right to the point with plenty of background info about SMTP, POP3 and DNS issues as they relate to IMS. Current coverage of Exchange 5 and good diagrams. Reccomended as a great supplement to a generic Exchange book

Outstanding book covering SMTP mail and the Exchange Internet Mail Service/Connector. If I could only have two books on Exchange this would be one of them. Great explanation of SMTP and how to configure IMS.

Even though this book covers mainly exchange 4.0 the information here is wholly appropriate for exchange 5.5.

The book covers smtp, and pop3 and using internet mail with exchange using indepth material.

This book is excellent and also makes a good ongoing reference as well.

You can email me at expat.muller@t-online.de

cheers

Este libro ofrece información detalla acerca de la arquitectura de OCS. El contenido de este libro es amplio, ofrece un nivel de detalle que no he visto en otros libros, de lejos el mejor. Para los que lo están evaluando, no lo pienses dos veces.

OCS is a powerful product, enabling many different scenarios, and this resource kit is a must for administering it.

Just having the tools and OCS PowerShell scripts in one place is handy, but what makes the *book* a great buy is the content around the tools and scripts. The book is neatly organized by different scenarios, and show each of the reskit tools *as appropriate for each scenario*. That's a big help, because there are many useful tools and scripts here, but identifying which one(s) to use would take a lot of effort without this focus.

The material itself is structured so that it's easy to find high level information, but has deeper information embedded. It's easy to get right to the practical information while skipping over the deeper technical content if you don't need it, but it's easy to find and dig into that deeper material if you *do* need it.

Because of the organization and solid content, you don't have to read the whole book to get a lot of value. When I needed specific information about the changes from LCS (the previous generation of OCS), or when I needed to figure out the best tools tools to use for the *new* scenarios, I got practical guidance, quickly, on the appropriate techniques and tools.

Best of all, the book is filled with detailed and interesting side bars from experts, both within the Microsoft product team and from outside experts with extensive real world deployment and configuration experience. They were so much fun, I found myself skimming the rest of the book, just to read these sidebars.

This book explain in good way the general architecture of Office Communications Server 2007. This Microsoft product have many features and many server roles to install and configure and in the resource kit there are some real scenarios descriptions that facilitate undestanding. In the book's cd there are some important tools for better management of the Server. Don't are developed in deep mode the integration with others Microsoft servers like SharePoint Server 2007 and MOM.

The OCS 2007 Resource Kit is a must have for any OCS administrator. It has all the details about Office Communicator you need to fully support and understand this complicated product. It has all the WMI settings that any admin would need to make changes to there environment. Also detailed diagnostic information about IM, Conferencing, Telephony is fully exposed in their respective chapters. I highly reoommend it.

This is a great book for anyone who has, is, or is thinking about working with Office Communications Server 2007. There's so much detail packed into this book, and it really runs you through the product from the bottom up. Since there was so much collaboration between people who have or continue to work on the product, no detail was spared.

I own this book for almost 2 years I also own many more and by far this is the best IPv6 book. It covers all the topics of IPv6 and does it in a clear but not to simplistic way.
It serves both as a tutorial and a reference manual. One of the great things about it is that it covers IPv6 configuration on all major platforms like Windows LINUX and many others.

I considered many different books about IPv6. It looks like I made the right choice. This book teaches both about IPv6 itself and how to implement it with different operating systems (Windows XP, Vista, Linux, FreeBSD, etc) using Cisco routers or Juniper routers. I am currently running a dual-stack on my home network (both IPv4 and IPv6) and hope to be fully prepared should I need to migrate a large business network to IPv6 in the near future.

Face it folks, IPv6 is coming. Windows Vista comes with it enabled, as well as a few tunneling technologies (such as ISATAP) to help the transition from IPv4.

This is a very comprehensive reference for IPv6. The author covers IPv6 from the basics to advanced topics like multicasting, anycasting, and mobility. The book even covers the application aspects of IPv6 and porting issues, as Marc has that background as well. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking a up-to-the-minutes overview of IPv6, and as a reference for anyone that will be working with the protocol over the years ahead.

Really useful IPv6 technical books are few and far between because the technology is so new and evolving rapidly so its hard for a book to keep up. Marc's new book is the most up to date and informative book available now. I've got a copy on my bookshelf and am already handing it to clients for reference about our IPv6 integration projects.

Amazon's date is wrong on this book. It was just published in Jan 2006, not in 2002.

Sylvia Hagen's book IPv6 Essentials is also excellent - I'm waiting for the 2nd edition to bring it up to date.

I have half a dozen books on IPv6 on my shelf and by far Migrating to IPv6 provides the most comprehensive view of IPv6 and related protocols in both breath and depth. The book is written in clear and concise manner so it is a perfect learning tool. Moreover, it also makes for a good reference book because each chapter in the book is self-contained.

Our team works on IPv6 transition and we liked Migrating to IPv6 so much that we order a book for each team member. This is a must have book if you are working in Networking.

Multichannel marketing is an excellent resource to learn about how you can combine on and off line marketing integrating it and providing metrics to evaluate campaigns. This is great for seasoned professionals or for those starting out in their career. Highly recommended read to expand your knowledge.

This book is written with excellent real-life examples and specific information. And it's written in a tone that's easy to digest, with a voice that's marketer-to-marketer. It's good to take a step back and understand how online and offline campaigns affect each other, especially if you don't actively do both for your job. I'm not finished with the book yet, but I've already subscribed to Akin's Blog (www.multichannelmetrics.com) and sent the link to my team!

As the online and the offline worlds collide from a marketing perspective, practitioners need to be fully prepared to leverage the wealth of opportunities this creates. The Multichannel Maketing book is targeted to this exact cause.
As an online marketer myself, I found this book extremely engaging and useful as we delve into combining our online and offline marketing efforts.
Since the only way to prove that our marketing efforts are paying off is measure, measure, measure, the measurement and metrics section of this book gave me a good grounding on what I need to do in terms of metrics.
Overall, it's a great book, especially if you are looking at multiple channels to achieve your marketing goals.

As a consultant, I interact with marketers everyday. Everytime I begin a new engagement, I spend volumes of time creating a common language and understanding around what "multi-channel marketing" means in today's world...certainly not an efficient investment of my time or my client's dollars.

FINALLY, there is a book that meets MY standards on both the theory and practice of multichannel marketing. Akin's book "Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success" provides unique insight and understanding to help marketers either begin the process of executing more complete multi-channel marketing efforts, or refine existing programs.

What I found especially compelling about Akin's book was the very natural and organic progression within each chapter. Chapters open with a quick summary of a business challenge/opportunity. His descriptions (often complimented by case studies) are direct and to-the-point...easily consumed by the multi-channel newbie. As he digs deeper into each topic he offers perspective that even the most seasoned CMOs will find actionable nuggets of wisdom in (I LOVED the Chapter 6 on Measuring Lift Between On-line and Offline).

In closing - is there value in Akin's first book? No matter what your currently level of expertise is...this book will make you a better marketer.

In this book, Akin Arikan walks us through the whole process of measuring online and offline activities using Web Analytics. He presents both theoretical advices and live examples of how his theories have been (can be) applied.

As a Web Analyst and an online marketer I look forward to adding the methods presented in the book to my repertoire. The jargon alerts alone are worth the read.

The book is very well written and should be required reading for marketers and analysts on the web. The interaction between online and offline is becoming more and more important, and companies must understand how to integrate all their marketing efforts.

I warmly recommend reading this book.

When I first selected this book, I was expecting material rather specific to CCIE Security preparation. What I found after reading it, however was that it not only covered CCIE Security preparation but CCIE R/S preparation as well as many real-world security topics.

Many authors attempt to cover a wide area of technologies and wind up losing organization of their presentation of the topics. I find Yusuf's organization to be excellent and flowed very well making this an easy read. In fact, considering how many topics this book covers I am amazed at just how well it is organized, which is better than many of the technology-specific books I have read over the years. I become very annoyed with having to go back to reference past topics time and again but I did not find that I had to do that with this book and was able to continue going forward along with the topics.

I also found that this book gets right to the point. Yusuf didn't pack a lot of fluff and filler into the material. Instead you get right into the meat of the topics. Keep in mind that if you are looking for a thorough reference to take you from the very beginning of a specific topic then this book is not for you. This book is part of the "CCIE Professional Development" series and as such assumes you have at least some pre-existing knowledge in these areas. With this in mind, I find this an excellent study guide as well as a real-world reference for various areas of Cisco security.

Perhaps one of the most unique and possibly useful chapters of this book is the non-Cisco material. For example the section covering security policies is invaluable. As a consultant I see client after client without a corporate security policy and in this day and age that's trouble waiting to happen. This section discusses the value of such a policy and how to begin developing it. Another area within this chapter contains information on various regulatory compliance mandates, such as HIPPA and SOX. While this info is readily available elsewhere, Yusuf neatly summarizes the various regulations, including who is mandated to comply, penalties for not doing so and the various Cisco solutions used for compliance.

I found this book to be excellent.

Are you a network engineer or a security engineer, consultant, or a candidate pursuing security certifications. If you are, then this book is for you! Author Yusuf Bhaiji, has done an outstanding job of writing a primary reference book that will help you design and build a secure network.

Bhaiji, begins by introducing you to the principles of network security, security models, a basic overview of security standards, policies, and the network security framework. Then, the author describes the capability to perform traffic filtering using access control lists. The author also covers some of the most common techniques used for device hardening and securing management access for routers, firewall appliances, and the intrusion prevention system appliance. He continues by covering port-level security controls at Layer 2 and security features and best practices available on the switch. Then, the author introduces the software-based IOS firewall features, including the legacy Context-Based Access Control and the newly introduced Zone-Based Policy Firewall feature available on the router. Next, he provides comprehensive coverage of firewall operating systems, software features and capabilities. The author continues by providing mitigation techniques for a wide range of attacks at Layer 2 and Layer 3. Then, he covers details of the authentication, authorization, and accounting framework and implementation of AAA technology. He continues by highlighting the common use of ACS software functions and features. Next, the author introduces common two-factor mechanisms. He also covers the Cisco trust and identity management solution based on the Identity-Based Networking Services technique. Then, the author provides an overview of wireless LAN and details of securing WLAN networks. He continues by showing you how to implement the Cisco NAC appliance solution as well as the NAC-L3-IP, NAC-L2-IP, and NAC-L2-802.1x solutions. Then, the author gives a basic overview of the various cryptographic algorithms, including hash algorithms, symmetric key, and asymmetric key algorithms. Next, he covers a wide range of IPsec VPN solutions. The author continues by showing you how to implement various types of DMVPN hub-and-spoke and spoke-to-spoke solutions. Then, he covers the innovative tunnel-less VPN approach to provide data security. He also covers the newly introduced Cisco AnyConnect VPN. Next, the author shows you how to implement Layer 2 and Layer 3-based MPLS VPN solutions. Finally, he covers regulatory compliance and legislative acts including GLBA, HIPAA and SOX.

This most excellent book serves as a valuable resource for candidates preparing for the CCIE Security certification exam that covers topics from the new blueprints. Perhaps more importantly, this great book serves as reference for any networking professional managing or considering exploring and implementing Cisco network security solutions and technologies.

This is a great reference book to understand the latest network security technologies based on Cisco security solution. It is certainly not for beginners but more suitable for CCSP / CCNP knowledge level readers. The book is divided into five parts and twenty five chapters with various degree of complexity. Each chapter has references at the end so readers can look up the URLs to find more information.

It starts with the basic overview of network security, OSI layer and the infamous Cisco security wheel. The next chapter explains IP address classes, subnet masks and access control list (ACL) in a short and concise manner. However, the explanation for IPv6 comes short as it is only 5 sentences long with a note to go to www.cisco.com/go/ipv6 for more details. The book describes the access control functions and types well although I doubt that many of us will use distributed time based ACL or Receive ACL for high end routers quite often.

The book does a very good job in explaining the security features for switches, IOS firewalls and firewall appliance in the following chapters. Some basic but essential security features like DHCP snooping, Dynamic ARP inspection, and Spanning Tree features are clearly described with some brief configuration examples. Network address translation, security context, failover and IP routing are illustrated well. It also very briefly mentions new features in software version 8.0 like EIGRP and AnyConnect VPN client. It should at least dedicate more explanations on these new features.

The next chapter for Cisco Secure ACS, 802.1x, wireless security and NAC will be overwhelming for beginners as it tries to cover a massive amount of information in five brief chapters.

The best part for this book is the data privacy section that covers solution architecture and configuration and deployment scenarios for IPSec VPN, Dynamic Multipoint VPN, Group Encrypted transport VPN, SSL VPN and MPLS VPN. Readers will probably spend more time understanding these than the rest of the remaining chapters.

The remaining chapters are for intrusion prevention system (IPS), Cisco Security Agent (CSA), Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis and Response System (CS-MARS), Cisco Security Manager (CSM), and Cisco Guard DDoS Mitigation. The basic theory, concepts and deployment guide for each of these appliances and software will help readers to understand how each product should be used to mitigate certain security risks.

The information in the book seems disjointed since the author divides the book into several parts making all these technologies in their separate entities while in fact many complement each other. The authors need to provide one more chapter to integrate most of these technologies together and present them in overall network security design to fulfill Cisco Self-Defending Network solution.
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The last chapter is for security regulation compliance. The author needs to include this since all of these security technologies are mostly implemented to meet the regulatory compliance. This chapter will certainly put network administrator like me to fall asleep in 5 minutes. I rather have the author to dedicate more pages for the VPN topics.

I am usually skeptical on any books that try to cover everything as they usually come short. However, the author does try hard to incorporate all these security technologies with easy to understand explanation and reference links in each chapter. I rate this book 5 out of 5 starts for its vast and diverse amount of information it covers while still keeping them easy to understand and concise. That is not an easy feat to accomplish.

Yusuf does a great job at putting together all the relevant material on network security technologies in one place - and all that with comes with an easy to read guide compiled nicely into relevant chapters/parts.

Overall book is divided into five parts, and information is presented in a manner that it serves both novice and advanced readers.

a few things can be improved in a later edition, e.g.., a)allocation of breadths to the newer areas (more on zone-based FW than CBAC) and b) less repetitiveness around the subject matter (ie, overlap with other cisco titles).

All in all, a great title and highly recommended for network security professional at all levels!

During the first 7 chapters the author gives overviews of security vulnerabilities and attack mitigations in the current networking world. When finer points are confusing, there is detailed explanation to make the problem clear. For example distinguishing between MAC spoofing and ARP spoofing. Each threat is outlined with a description, background, problems, and mitigation techniques using Cisco configuration. This is not just a theory book but manages to fit in useful configuration examples in almost every turn of the page. This is not a quick read: you will want to have a lab setup to practice on while you read.

Unlike many security discussions that make much of vulnerabilites that are highly unlikely or virtually impossible to pull off, the author clearly states when an attack is improbable, and not worth the effort to consider.

The second unit of the book focuses on identity and access management. I found the sections on layer 2 access control most useful. Particularly the use of 802.1x protocol with a RADIUS server. Something I am currently trying to implement in a network.

Part 3 is all about privacy and encryption and covers many ways to tunnel, hide, and encrypt data packets. The last sections are about Intrusion Detection and Security Management.

Perhaps one of the most helpful setions in the book are the guidelines for establishing a security policy and making it work in a real world environment. Chapter 25 walks you through starting with a security model that gives you a foundation for fleshing out your companies standards, guidelines and procedures so you will be ready for your next audit as well as the real security threats of today.

Old Fart's Guide To Internet Searches uses the popular search engine Google as its root, showing older computer users how to understand the World Wide Web and its potentials. From an introduction on its initial invention and how it's evolved to a new case study set of examples which walk users through the basics of making an effective Internet search, this is a highly recommended pick.

This is another of Aaron Rosenzweig's 5-star books. Aaron is an expert researcher and teacher. He has filled his book with loads of good information and advice on searching the Internet.

For more of my comments, see my more comprehensive review in the Washington Apple Pi (Mac users' group) Journal for May/June 2004.

Once again, author and computer wiz Aaron Rosenzweig has come up with THE comprehensive field guide to navigating the wide world of Internet searches. This book leaves absolutely no stone unturned when it comes to detailing the different search engines, tips and techniques for getting the most out of your searches, using the ever-popular Google, discovering NEW search engines and the right key words and phrases to use to get you to your destination with less frustration and wasted time.

For ANYONE who has a computer, this book is a must, and will no doubt become one of your most-used books on your shelf. Keep it right alongside your computer. You will not only need this book, you will be grateful for it! An awesome step-by-step guide for Old Farts, Young Farts and those of us Farts that fall somewhere in between!
MARIE JONES, Reviewer for BookIdeas.com

So you ended up getting your loved ones their fist computer for christmas, and you included a copy of "Old Farts Guide to the Macintosh" in their stocking. Of course they love the computer (it's a Mac, who wouldn't) but they just can't seem to get around on the internet quite as efficiently as they should.

In other words; it's been 2 months, and you're damn sick of getting calls asking where they can find cast and crew credits from the movie "The Big Lebowski", or where to find a picture of a rabbit with a pancake on its head.

That is where the newest book in the "Old Farts Guide" series comes in; "Old Farts Guide to Internet Searches" by Aaron Rosenzwig. Like the books predecessor ("Old Farts Guide to the Macintosh") this book fills a void other books seem to miss. It breaks things down in plain english. No term is mentioned with out a definition on the very same page, and no prior knowledge is assumed.

The book is aimed at the older crowd who are still intimidated by computers, and does an excellent job at explaining things that a lot of us take for granted. I know how hard it is to accomplish this task. I've worked about 5 years in phone tech support, and I have talk more first time computer users through how to use a mouse then I care to count. The way the author conveys these "basic" concepts is extraordinary. I would suggest "Old Farts Guide to Internet Searches" to anyone new to the internet.

"Old Farts Guide to Internet Searches" is available from Cocoa Nuts and is priced at $19.95. For the books ability to explain things in a easy to read manor, and for the giant void this book fills, I give it 5 out of 5 Stars

-iKen
www.2guysamacandawebsite.com

Product Review
From the foreword by Brian Pinkerton to the index at the end, this is a superb book. I have to thank Aaron for writing this Internet guide. If you enjoyed the Old Fart's Guide to the Macintosh and also use the Internet, then this is the book that you MUST HAVE! It is very easy reading, and Aaron's sharp sense of direction paves an easy path through the Internet jungle. He provides easy to understand overviews of the Internet, browsers, and search engines. Aaron suggests scanning through the book and then reading it in it's entirety from cover to cover. Although all of the chapters are independent of each other, it would be well worth your while to absorb the information presented in all of the chapters.

First things first, the guide is equally applicable to the Macintosh operating system, Microsoft Windows, and Linux operating systems, and covers not only the most popular browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape), but also over a half dozen additional browsers. Aaron includes many screenshots of his examples, in order to familiarize the reader with the particular topic that he is covering throughout the book.

The book starts out by describing the Internet, various Internet Service Providers, and different types of Internet connections. A number of search engines are covered, starting with Google and continuing through a "No-Search Search Engine", called "BrainBoost", which by-passes the "key word" concept and allows the user to directly type in a simple question in plain english. Aaron covers simple searches with how to find specific types of information, such as finding friends, financial information, books, recipes, movie listings, acronyms and driving directions, to name a few. Next Aaron covers advanced searching techniques, and how to save your search preferences in Google so that you can easily customize and repeat your individualized options the next time that you search. Last, but not least, Aaron covers various types of Internet hoaxes that crop up from time to time, and includes tips on how to identify and avoid them.

After the main topics section Aaron has compiled a handy list of useful web sites, arranged into helpful popular categories, each with a brief descriptive paragraph, a comprehensive Glossary of computer terms, and an alphabetical Index at the end.

Summary
While the book is designed for an older person who is new to the Internet, I would suggest it for a someone in any age category. The book is enjoyable to read, and it is very informative. All of the technical terms are in plain english, and Aaron has left handy margins on each page for the reader to record notes. Even though I have used the Internet for many years myself, I enjoyed reading this book and I never felt bored with it. Aaron has put together a great book, and it is a valuable asset to anyone who wants to learn more secrets on how to use the Internet.

One of my biggest pleasures with this book is both the presence of an index and plenty of cross-referencing. Another really nice feature of this book is that it explains the definitions of many technical words throughout the book along the side of the pages where the word is used. These side areas also have pictures, for instance a picture of the browser window with arrows pointing to the appropriate place corresponding to the text description.

I enjoyed the book's clear sense of order, thoroughness, and accuracy. I highly recommend this book not only to us Old Fart's, but to any user, new or old, who is using the Internet. This very powerful book is invaluable to read and you are sure to keep it nearby your computer whenever you use the Internet. I look forward to more books in Aaron's "Old Fart's Guide" series. The "Old Fart's Guide to Internet Searches" is available for $19.95 from the Cocoa Nuts web site and I would rate it 5 out of 5 farts(the good kind).

This was an excellent book; well researched, well written, and well organized. This book provided a remarkable contrast to "The Cathedral and the Baazar", which, while interesting, was generally poor in its organization and far too biased to take seriously. Although the author is obviously biased towards open sourse, this is the most objective book I've read coming from the open source community. Rosenberg often objectively points out the challenges the open source debate will face legally and philisophically in the near future. This is a great reference book for anyone interested in the open source debate.

Open Source: The Unathorized White Papers is a real contrast to the other more well known book I've read on the subject, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. While Cathedral and Bazaar reads like a series of unorganized USENET posts and random musings, Open Source is very well organized, and professionally written and edited. It contains up to date and accurate information about a range of topics relating to open source, including history, examples of businesses, and licensing.

The book's coverage of licensing is easily the most complete source for understanding a very complex subject. There are so many misconceptions of what licensing means in terms of software that the book is a must read if you either run a software company or are considering investing in one.

The only issue I have with the book is its description of the Java programming language as not having "a community". Being on the board of directors for the local Java User's Group I naturally take issue with that characterization, but for the sake of brevity, as well as sticking to the topic at hand, I will refrain from bringing out the voluminous amount of evidence to the contrary. :-)

For disclosure, I must admit to having met Mr. Rosenberg in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina. This isn't hard to do, considering he attends meetings of nearly every technical group I can think of, and is an expert on "people" networking.

This book presents an excellant overview of the open source development arena: who is playing, why they are playing, where are they headed, etc. It also provides an excellant grounding in the forces that shaped the movement, as well as the individuals who found themselves leading a movement (when they really thought they were just good programmers).

The book is well written and organized, with interesting side stories that provide a drill-down view of key areas. There is also good discussion of the strategy that is behind the key players in the game today, as well as insights into emerging opportunities.

For anyone who wants a good overview of this revolutionary method of software development, this is it.

Sometimes a home run is little more than a hit causing an increment tick to a stat, but once in a while it's a powerful work of art that changes the game--Donald Rosenberg's book is the latter. It is, by far, the best book on Open Source written to date.

As someone involved with open source strategies at a large corporation in the computer industry, I found Donald's book to be objective, insightful, and current which reflects an intimate knowledge of someone on the inside.

The level-headedness of this book makes it an essential read for anyone trying to understand the counter-intuitive nature of open source or protect themselves from the FUD, emotions, and convoluted conversations that plague Open Source.

This book is a compilation of essays on open source from the author. He covers the origins and history, as well as a responsible coverage of the licensing models. While there is an over emphasis of Linux, it does talk about various business models that can be used in the open source context. It also includes the text of some of the major open source licenses.

This is a essential book for beginners and advanced users. DBAs can have good references to implement ASM without problems. There are many information not found in conventional forums.

Other than Oracle documentation, this is the only ASM source of information that I know of. This book is a relatively fast read and comes in at under 300 pages.

The first chapter is very helpful and I learned some information about disk storage that I did not know. I am more comfortable talking with SAN and system administrators now. They also get the feel that I know what I am talking about. After the first chapter, the book dives right into ASM architecture and management. Each chapter is well written and easy to understand. This book also covers the new features in Oracle 11 and you can see that Oracle is dedicated to maturing ASM. ASM is here to stay and it will gain in popularity.

One of the areas that I thought could have been better is the discussion and explanation of RAC, ASM and how the cluster registry is affected. It would have been nice to have a chapter on OCFS just as a supplement. Some shops will utilize both OCFS and ASM. OCFS will host the OCR and voting file as ASM can not be used.

If you are new to ASM or you are an expert, this book is a good read. If you are new to ASM will get more out of it (obviously) since it covers everything you need to know to install and maintain ASM. Fortunately since this is the only ASM book (as of today) and it is great source of information you will not be wasting your time. This book comes highly recommended.

George Loewenthal
Denver, Colorado

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Under-the-Hood & Practical Deployment Guide.This is a must have book for those who are working on ASM or who are planning to implement ASM.Chapters like "ASM Space Allocation and Rebalance","ASMLIB Concepts and Overview","Managing Database in ASM" and "ASM and Storage Array Configuration" gives you in detail information.

After reading the book I can say that now I know what actually is ASM/How it works/How to Implement ASM and I don't need any more training on ASM.


-MOHAMMED MOINUDDIN UMAIR
Senior Tuning Consultant,LEHMAN BROTHERS,NEW JERSEY

One of the authors of this book is the director of development for ASM. Who would know more about it than the developers? The other 2 implement it in many different environments. Lastly, the technical reviewer Charles Kim wrote the 11g new features book for Apress. There could not be a better group of people to write a book about ASM and review it than these individuals.

I would highly recommend this book for any DBA that will be working with ASM and / or RAC. The high performance, ease of use, and low cost make it a very attractive solution. This book will teach you everything you need to know about ASM (that's why it's called an "Under-the-Hood" guide). It also makes an excellent reference.

Someone recenlty mentioned that Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) is probably the best thing ever happened to Oracle next to SQL*Plus. I would second that. However there was no definitive text available in the market and Nitin & co perfectly filled the gap with this classic one.

This book starts with the basics of the storage technology and moves towards the center of the ASM with deep discussions on ASM data structures, ASM in operation and ASM troubleshooting. Nitin probably probably knows more about ASM than anyone I know and excels in explaining the complex technologies in easy to understand manner. You will immensely benefit from his wisdom and real life experience.

A must read for Oracle Storage Administrators and DBAs working with RAC/ASM.