Computers and Internet Books

This book is perfect for people who want to understand more about information technology and don't want to read something long or technical to learn it. The authors do a superb job taking the reader through how major technologies function (computers, the internet, cell phones, etc.), how they are shaping our lives, and what impacts they have on our laws and society. Amazing stories are woven throughout it, making it readable and fun for techies and non-techies alike. At the end of the book, you'll have a new understanding of the things we take for granted - and what possibilities and threats they pose. You'll also be light years ahead of most other people - who themselves will need to come up to speed in the coming years. A great read!

This is one of those books that will change the way you look at the world, or at least, your computer (which, as you'll learn, might be a lot more of the world than you think!) In a very readable prose, the authors explain how the world is fundamentally different now that so much information -- so many bits -- is being generated, monitored, and stored about nearly everything we do. The book covers not just how the internet actually works but also weaves together many applicable examples from the worlds of commerce, entertainment, government, and law.

It is one of those books that will cause you to share what you just read with whomever happens to be in the room, as it is filled with many gee-whiz moments. A great read.

One does not often stop to think of how the rush to technology has dug itself into our lives. Blown to Bits gives you an engaging perspective and makes you think every time you do something "on-line" like this simple review, right here, right now!

I could not put this book down. It presents in approachable and lucid terms the complexities and subtleties of the information age. It goes beyond the mere didactic, using well thought out and entertaining vignettes to make it a joy to read. Read this book.

Mr. Morris is very informative, easy to follow and ,the best part,he's very funny. I keep this book close to my computor at all times. D.Solomo

I had read this book and found very informative. I recommend it to the one who would like to know more about internet

Mr. Morris is very informative, easy to follow and ,the best part,he's very funny. I keep this book close to my computor at all times. D.Solomo

I love this book. If you want to use the internet to enhanceyour off-line reading experience, this book is a wonderful choice. Aguide to authors' sites, incredible on-line literary magazines, on-line libraries, and collections of great reading--real treasures, like Arts & Letters Daily. You'll bookmark a ton of URLs from this book! Plus how to publish your own work on-line. Highly recommended.

It seems like technologies start off very small, mill around for a while, and then explode. I remember attending a communications conference ten years or so ago and first learning about the move of broadband to the individual home. There were all kinds of things being talked about from cable modems to DSL. Then I went home and tried to get one. The people at the cable company and the phone company had no idea what I was talking about.

Now, as I sit in my home in a small town in very Nevada, I have at least five different choices of providers of broadband services. And the penetration seems to be growing so fast the reporting organizations can't keep track. This book reports that about 25% of U.S. homes have broadband. One web site says that the penetration jumped 1.36% last month alone to reach 58.6%. At any case it is exploding.

This book is a collection of articles put together by two professors at Harvard Business School. The articles cover almost every aspect of broadband services from what's happening technically, to the social aspects of broadband everywhere, to specifics on things like the next 'killer apps,' malicious threats, legal structure, and more. It reflects the current thinking on what's going to happen.

The Broadband Explosion is an anthology of essays written by a variety of authors contemplating far-reaching questions about what repercussions the rise in broadband connection will have on modern society and business. From evaluating how Wi-Fi and Voice Over IP technologies will play out, to speculating on what will be the next- generation "killer apps", to forecasting how the structure of the industry will shift, questioning whether governments should invest in a broadband infrastructure, and evaluating possible new security threats, The Broadband Explosion is a haven for deep thought, budding ideas, and dire warnings. A handful of diagrams illustrate this forward-looking compendium recommended for business and government leaders striving to plan for an increasingly connected future.

The Broadband Explosion is an anthology of essays written by a variety of authors contemplating far-reaching questions about what repercussions the rise in broadband connection will have on modern society and business. From evaluating how Wi-Fi and Voice Over IP technologies will play out, to speculating on what will be the next- generation "killer apps", to forecasting how the structure of the industry will shift, questioning whether governments should invest in a broadband infrastructure, and evaluating possible new security threats, The Broadband Explosion is a haven for deep thought, budding ideas, and dire warnings. A handful of diagrams illustrate this forward-looking compendium recommended for business and government leaders striving to plan for an increasingly connected future.

Most of us techno-geeks live and breathe in the world of broadband, and it's become an invisible "given" in our lives. But often it's good to step back and look at the broader picture of the industry... This book does just that: The Broadband Explosion - Leading Thinkers on the Promise of a Truly Interactive World edited by Robert D. Austin and Stephen P. Bradley.

Contents:
The Promise of Broadband: The Broadband Explosion; Broadband and Collaboration; Broadband Deployment - From Vision to Reality; Valuation Bubbles and Broadband Deployment
Creating Value in a Broadband World: Disruption, Disintegration, and the Impact of New Telecommunications Technologies; Internet2 - The Promise of Truly Advanced Broadband; Broadband and Hyperdifferentiation - Creating Value by Being Really Different; eChoupal - Revolutionizing Supply Chains in Rural India
Capturing the Value of Wireless Broadband: i-mode - Value Chain Strategy in the Wireless Ecosystem; Wi-Fi - Complement or Substitute for 3G?; Wireless Local Area Networks - Why Integration Is Inevitable; Widespread Adoption of Wireless Enterprise Solutions
Policy and the Broadband Future: The Inevitability of Broadband; Protecting Telecommunications Infrastructure from Malicious Threats; Open Spectrum - The Great Wireless Hope; The Balkanization of the Broadband Internet

Explosion is a series of essays from people who make their living thinking about and working with internet and broadband technology. While not a "hands-on" type book that explains how to do something, it's valuable in that it allows you to take a step back and ponder the opportunities and issues surrounding high-speed, ubiquitous access to the internet. For instance, Balkanization examines how the Internet is impacted by nationalistic attempts to control and filter content that by design flows without restraint. Protecting is important for understanding just how precarious our network infrastructure is, and how the interweaving of multiple infrastructures can cause a minor incident to have truly global impact. But it's not all gloom and doom. eChoupal is an excellent case study of how free access to information eliminated an inefficient and often corrupt middle layer between producer and market, and allowed family farmers to make decisions based on global market conditions. Very interesting stuff...

The book does suffer from the same thing that many compilations exhibit... differing levels of writing and communication skills. Granted, these are all highly educated people who know their areas. But some chapters are focused on practical application of the technology, while other chapters seem to go off on graphs and charts measuring mathematical formulas for buying decisions. And sometimes the content seems only marginally related to broadband technology as they build up to their premise. But even with that, the gems are well worth the occasional rocks that seemed to crop up.

If you're ready to ponder the question of "so where does this all lead?", you'll find plenty of material here to direct your musings...

Bug-Free Computing, by Ken Dwight, who calls himself "The Virus Doctor," is a book that could be very important to business people who depend on their computers to make a living and worry about a virus or other malevolent software designed to attack a computer and bring it down.

If this concerns you, but you have no real idea how to deal with it, Dwight's book is a solid primer designed for the average computer user. You don't have to be a geek to understand it, it's written in plain English, with a minimum of technical jargon. For example, in a chapter devoted to data backups, readers will be delighted to find information specifically tailored to the average user - what to back up, when, how, what media to use, what programs to use, etc.

Viruses are a primary focus of the book; most computer users are aware of viruses and their potential to do harm, but what many users don't understand, even technicians, is that viruses have changed greatly in the past few years in terms of virus behavior and distribution, so it's extremely important to keep up with and be aware of these differences.

Bug-Free Computing also discusses spyware, browser hijackers, keyloggers, spam, hoaxes, urban legends and other possible computer problems. You don't have to read the book cover-to-cover to get the help you need. The reader can take a look at the table of contents to discern the chapter that covers their most pressing concerns, and quickly flip to that chapter.

In addition, the text includes hyperlinks to various web sites and articles referenced in the book. If the reader desires more information than what is presented in Dwight's book, the links will provide more detail and even direct the reader to vendors of products mentioned in the book. Also, the information contained in the appendices is extremely helpful; the most useful is the ability to keep the information up-to-date from the Book Registration web site.

While the subject of programs that can damage your computer is a serious one, Dwight offers a light-hearted detour in the form of a section on hoaxes and urban legends. This section is good for a few chuckles before returning to the grim realities of dealing with computer problems.

Dwight's style is easy and disarming, making for a pleasant read, even for technophobes. For example, in the chapter on spam, he shows users how to read message headers and footers to find clues to the real identity of the sender and how to use filters to cut down on your spam email. He also explains that it's not a good idea to click on the "Remove Me" link that is included in some spam emails; that action could possibly increase your email rather than decrease it.

Ken Dwight's book is chock-full of common-sense pointers, making it an excellent choice for those who want to protect their computers without hiring expensive consultants.

Mr. Dwight draws on his 40 years of computer experience to present a lucid explanation of the inner workings of PC programs and how they are affected by viruses and other malicious programming. His technical explanations are easy to follow and understand, even for the novice PC user. His book has clear screen-shots of typical Windows options, and he carefully explains why and how to optimize Windows for maximum operating efficiency and security. His book is essential reading for anyone who has a PC connected to the Internet. I am an accomplished user, but I am not an expert, and I found his many hints and suggested settings to be excellent methods of improving my PC's protection. I purchased several copies to give to family and friends because I found his advice invaluable.

This is a great book for anyone who has a computer. The book is arranged well, starting with an overview of computer viruses and how they originate, pass from machine to machine and work. It gives a brief insight as to the type of person who creates this havoc.

Most importantly, it gives us the information that we need to minimize our exposure to computer viruses and what to do if/when we get infected. I will definitely keep my virus and firewall protection up to date.

Title: Bug-Free Computing
Author: Ken Dwight
Publisher: The TeleProcessors, Inc.
14300 Cornerstone Village Drive, Suite 321
Houston, TX 77014-1276
Copyright: 2005
ISBN: 0975408542
Pages: 162 plus appendixes
Price: $19.95

If your computer is on and you are connected to the Internet then sooner or later it will become infected. These days you don't have to open attachments, download a file, or even surf the web to become infected; just being connected can make you a target. In his book Bug-Free Computing, Ken Dwight educates the reader about the history of the many threats to safe computing and what you can do to make your computer experience as safe as possible. Some of the information will be surprising to most people including the fact that most infections occur on a system that has anti-virus software installed. To keep bug-free he discusses anti-virus software, using a firewall, spam filtering, and a host of other techniques to increase your safety. And, of course he includes a section on what to do if you are already infected. Written in a very easy to understand style, Bug-Free Computing is highly recommended to the everyday user who wants to understand the computing environment and how to work on their computer without stressing about infections.

I went to the book store looking for a book on blogging and spotted this unusual title 'Building Findable Websites'. Within the first few moments of thumbing through the book, I knew I was going to get it. I already had several search engine optimization books, but this one talked about SEO and so much more. It even had a chapter on blogging.

What strikes me most about this book is that literally every page has website resources or bits of code. The second most striking this is the author does not fill page after page of why to do something. The whys are kept to the point and jump right into the hows. This book is not filled with dozens of interviews or inspirational stories though it does have real world examples which the author provides links to so the reader can get more detail. I really liked the example of BMW Germany getting blacklisted from Google for blackhat SEO tactics.

The author also has a great companion website to the book which includes 5 bonus chapters, the table of contents for the book, website tools and code used in the book. Since Amazon doesn't have a 'Search Inside' on this book, you can read the bonus chapters to get a feel for the book and the author. Also be sure and check out his blog at [...] where you can see samples of his work and a list of books he uses as references two of which I've decided to get as well.

After reading this book, I appreciate the difference between findability versus SEO. This book focuses on best practices and web standards of which SEO is only a part of.

I got this book because I'm a web developer by trade, working on the back-end (mostly PHP) and a lot of front-end. This book helped illuminate a lot about the "black art" that is SEO. It dispelled some myths, confirmed some thoughts of mine and all in all was a good book, especially if you're techincal.

That's the "building" part of the title. The author also covers basic and advanced SEO strategies that don't require knowledge of any kind of programming language. That's the "SEO" part of the title. The last bit is the "beyond" and covers a lot about driving and maintaining traffic to your site. I didn't pick up this book for that reason, but I read most of these sections anyway and I'm glad I did because I learned a lot more than I thought I would.

If you're a developer of any kind working on web sites, or are a project manager dealing with clients, this book will help you sound smart and have some ammo to back it up. I'm already under water with a project that is implementing a ton of these tips - I'm curious to see how much the traffic increases.

This well-written and informative book on getting your web site noticed by users boils the advice down to one sentence: "Your content should always be written for humans first, and search engines second!" It emphasizes building attractive content first, then removing any roadblocks that would prevent search engines from finding it.

The book is an interesting blend of high-level strategy and low-level techie tools and techniques. The mostly likely audience is actually webmasters more than web designers or marketers, although all would benefit from it. The most valuable part for me was the review of the many management tools, most of them free, available for studying your web site.

The web standards part doesn't really get a lot of attention in this book. No one today is going to seriously argue against following web standards. The advice in this book is limited to "use HTML elements for what they were designed for," with a promise that that will improve your search rankings. For example, it recommends using the various header levels to structure your document instead of just using boldface and bigger type, and it recommends using tables only for tabular date and using CSS for precise placement of a mosaic of elements.

A lot of what's here is not really about findability but about making your site worth finding, and about how to hold on to your audience once they've found the site. It covers techniques such as mailing lists (old technology but still very valuable), RSS feeds, user-generated content (such as product reviews), and blogs. The book makes the interesting point that authoring for search engines is very similar to authoring for the visually impaired. If you are careful to make your site accessible to humans, it will automatically be more accessible to search engines. There is specific advice on handling blogs, JavaScript menu systems, Shockwave Flash, and Ajax.

The big buzz phrase for the past few years has been Search Engine Optimization(SEO). Companies are paying other companies millions of dollars to get, and keep their websites in the front of different keyword searches on the larger search engine sites. Is it worth it? In most cases... probably not. Anyone thinking about paying money to have someone make their site "SEO" friendly should read Building Findable Websites.

Being a web standards practitioner, I had great theories of how building a website the right way can take care of most of your SEO woes. After reading Aarron's book on the topic, my theories were solidified. having a website that is built semantically using XHTML, CSS and javascript will drastically make your web presence findable for your users and for the search engines.

Is your website still wrangling a table based layout with messy unreadable code? Before spending thousands on SEO enhancements, read this book. See what the buzz of Web Standards is about(if you have not already) and go from there; you will not be disappointed.

It teaches me many useful google tricks that I didn't know before. Especially this www.googlefight.com website is fun. You can fight anything there. Even this book with other google related books.

See who wins.

This book has the best information I have read about Google and the syntax of search. If I have a bone to pick it is with writing style which might be a little too humorous for me. But this doesn't bother too much. I am a programmer so I like the information about the Google APIs. It is accurate and helpful. But also the good information about research. And, where else are you going to find a Dummies book that explains the Internet, Socratic method, Plato, and Talmud? If these things at all are of interest to you, get this book.

I've been a fan of Harold Davis's books for some time. I come at them as someone who has been writing computer programs from the days when computers were room-filling monsters. If I need to quickly get going on a new programming language, I know that if Davis has a book on that language, that's the book to buy. But this book is way different. Sure it has stuff for programmers like detailed information about the Google APIs so we can easily build our own slick search programs. But it has fascinating information for anyone who uses Google - and nowadays that's everybody. I promise that if you get this book you will learn surprising and useful things about Google that you never suspected.

I'm a webmaster, and I use Google everyday - both in connection with my sites, and also to research all kinds of things. This book will have you building research tools that extend Google. But more important, it will you teach about how to research, what is Google and what is not, how Google works, how to evaluate the credibility of what you find, and much more. If you teach someone to fish, you feed them for life. This book will help you research for life. It's the best book about Google I've read, and believe me I've read a few. If Google touches your life, get this book.

Great book with lots of ideas on NXT robot building. The author, Mario Ferrari, does an excellent job of describing each and bringing unique ideas to the table.

A good book with clear explanations and a non-intimidating style for beginners.

A more detailed look at the NXT-G programming language would have been helpful, as this is the program that comes with the NXT retail kit.

It is a excellent book to construct a robot. The book provide more phyiscal knowledge. You can unstand the NXT well by this book. I recommand and like this book strongly!

This book is just fantastic. Starts out with the basics for building strong stable robots, and moves on to more complex ideas. Great examples of robots throughout the book which will provide ideas for building your own masterpiece.
It doesn't have step by step instructions, and is more of an ideas book for NXT enthusiasts.
I'd recommend this for your home or Robotics club library.

It was hard to choose how many stars this library worths. It includes 3 completly different books. The Caslow book is absolutly perfect. It's a very good tutorial, probably the best I know. I passed real written test and even I couldn't find answers to some questions from the test in this book, if you want to read just one book and get the maximum information - that's it! You might be not able to answer all questions, but I believe it gives you enough information to pass.

But two other books are completly different. First of all, they are not about cisco. It's just a general theory, a lot of packet structure diagrams and protocol description. Language sometimes is very dull and dry. Many topics, especially in the ATM book are beyond the scope of CCIE exam. Routing book contains a lot of interesting information about routing history, current problems and possible ways of future improvements. Probably, these books are interested to some readers, but it's not the best choice for CCIE preparation.

I put 4 stars just because Caslow book is so good that it makes whole library useful too. But I'd strongly recommend to buy this one book only and spend the rest of money to some other tutorials.

Prentice Hall is fast becoming a name in the IT publishing world for producing material and books that will help everyone obtain just about any certification and the CCIE Resource Library 2001 edition is one set of books that should make passing the exam easier.

The three-book set is comprised of material starting with Book 1 - Routing in the Internet. Over 370 pages covering topics like the Internet and the architecture of the Internet. Also IP v4 and v6 are discussed and compared and then you begin to delve into the routing protocols, both interior and exterior.

The book finishes up with new ideas such as multicasting and overall seems to layout the Internet in fairly easy language. Book 2 - Voice over IP is new to the set and is written by Uyless Black. Black starts this excellent book off with an overview of telephony and the Internet.

Also covered is DSPs, Voice coders, DSL, modems, PPP, the role of the ISP, performance issues, VoIP Protocols, Voice alternatives and ISDN. Black is very good at breaking down the subject matter and making sure the reader can understand the concepts.

Finally comes book 3 - Cisco Certification: Bridges, Routers and Switches for CCIEs 2nd Edition, written by 2 well-respected CCIEs and authors. Over 900 pages broken down into six parts, part one is the configuration of the hardware.

Part 2 is breakdown of IP and the configurations of the routing protocols like RIP, OSPF, IGRP, EIGRP and BGP. Part 3 deals with non-ip routing, part 4 is bridging and part 5 is for management. Overall the entire collection is some of the best technical material I have seen so far.

One of the toughest, if not the toughest certification to get is CCIE. That's why it's very important to make sure that the books you use are the best out there. Prentice Hall has put together the only CCIE Library I have seen.

In book 1 of the 3 - ATM Volume III - the entire world of ATM is taken apart and dissected for you. Encapsulation, frame relay, DXI and FNNI, LNNI and ARP, multiprotocols over ATM are but a few of the topics discussed in great detail. In the second book - Routing in the Internet 2nd Edition - the book is broken down into 4 parts. Part1 discusses IP and associated protocols including IP V.6. Part 2 takes a look at the interior routing protocols like RIP and OSPF, it does breakdown both RRIP1 and RIP2.

Part 3 is the exterior protocols like BGP and CIDR. Finally in part 4 you have explanations of new developments in multicasting and mobile hosting. The book is well written and well documented and the author really gives a complete look at the internet and how routing is used.

The final book - Cisco Certification - Bridges, Routers and Switches for CCIE is written by Andrew Bruce Caslow a CCIE himself. Caslow has written several other book on the CCNA certification and as with the other books this is an excellent reference manual.

The advanced routing techniques like ISDN and DDR as well as excellent coverage of the Catalyst 5000 switch are some the topics Caslow goes over is this book. Caslow also sheds light on ATM and extensive detail on IP Addressing and routing.

Protocols like RIP, IGRP, EIRGP and OSPF as with non-IP routing protocols AppleTalk, DECNET and IPX are broken down for you. Caslow's knowledge of bridging, which includes source route, transparent and translation is nothing short of tremendous.

Caslow's book has sample scenarios, about the only thing it doesn't do it take the test for you. Prentice Hall has a great number of book on computers and networking and you should checkout their website today. Overall this book can be used as a handy reference manual and a study guide for Cisco tests. The price is small in comparison to what you get.

If you prepare for CCIE written test, buy Ccie Resource Library. This 3 volume set will gain your knowledge and experience about internetworking skills. Full of some very usefull case studies, network design, etc. No matter where you are in your progress towards the exam, this book is a worthwhile addition to your Cisco library.

The entire book contains output from numerous working configurations. These examples confirm that the authors did not just throw together another theory book, but have taken the time and effort to create scenarios that can be recreated by the reader. A CD accompanies the book, and contains complete configurations so that the reader can copy and paste them into home lab hardware.

In short, this book is one of the most interesting books concerning certification topics. After you read these 3 set books, I guarantee you pass the CCIE written test. Buy it, and plan to stay up late the night of your purchase. You won't be disappointed.

I am in agreement with all the previous reviews. This is a must-read for anybody who needs to manage Cisco CSM or CSS on a daily basis. I am new to the load balancer world and this book gave me the confidence to make changes and design recommendations for load balancing solutions.

I've been in SLB industry for over 5 years. This book has the juice of all whats needed for deploying cisco load balancers in todays modern data centers. A must for Content/SLB readers!!

Truly Comprehensive. I have been working with Data Center related designs for more than six years and have never seen Content Switching covered as good as it is covered in this book. This book is for all expertise levels. I particularly like the Case Studies existent in almost every chapter. I highly recommend that you give this book a read before you tackle you next Integrated Service DC design or configuration.

Content Switching is the placing of a smart switch between the communications channel and the processing systems. The biggest application is Server Load Balancing. This is used when the activity on a web site becomes more than one server can handle.

The idea is that you put in the switch where the high speed line comes in. Then you plug in multiple servers on the other side. The switch looks at the content of the incomming messages and sends the consecutive http requests to different servers. There are, of course, other types of content that needs switching, but web load balancing is the big application.

The current Cisco switches are quite complex systems that monitor what each server is doing (i.e. response time) and then sends the http request to the fastest responding server which is usually the server with the lowest load. They can also monitor when a server goes down and stop sending requests to that server.

This book is published by Cisco Press, as you might guess, it is heavily oriented to Cisco equipment. This is not a serious problem as Cisco is probably the biggest supplier, and the philosophy described in the book is fairly common over the other brands of equipment.

The book is clearly written and at the right level for a person suddenly faced with a workload problem on a web server.

most chapter's are only 10 pages or less long so you can sit down for 5 minutes read a chapter then come back and read another chapter later as it helps to read a whole chapter at once

where as some books are like 40 pages per chapter and ya need to sit down with a fair bit of time just to read the chapter

Ben Forta's Certified Coldfusion 5 Developer Study Guide will not teach ColdFusion, but will be a review guide that provides helpful pointers for examinees. The book's look will be non-intimidating yet thorough, and will be highly readable in small bite-sized chunks. Each subject will be presented in a clear and direct language, with useful and well explained code examples. Sample questions will accompany each subject, as will references to recommended reading, product documentation, Macromedia course work, and existing ColdFusion books. 432 pp. Intermediate-Advanced user level.

I have been developing with CF for about 4 years now but there were several features I had never used. I purchased this book and within a week got the nerve to take the exam. The book came with a 15% off coupon for the exam so it about paid for itself with that. I passed the exam today and achieved Certified Advanced status. In a word, Outstanding!

The book was helpful, the chapter formats are short and to the point giving you only what you need to pass the, which is good. Just don't rely only on this book...here is a secret, there is a program called cf_buster that is a great test prep that when used in conjuction with this book simulate a certified test environment. I passed my test today.