Computers and Internet Books

Having had little to no experience in web site design and creation this book gives a thorough grounding in all aspects of commercial web site creation. It abounds with resources and ideas. A highly practical "grammar" to dealing with all stages of site creation, from initial concept through to creating a sophisticated web site mechanism which works!!.

A straightforward nononsense approach is adopted throughout. An excellent buy and excellent value for money. Thank you very much to Kim Hampton-et-al and I am looking forward to purchasing the 2nd Edition.

This book has a lot. If you need a one-stop source of information, this is the one. I use it constantly developing sites for my customers. Although it serves as a site planning and design guide, it has an excellent quick-reference section and HTML concepts are boiled down as well as any 'Teach Yourself' book I've read.

If you are interested in providing freelance web design skills (including graphics) or starting your own firm, this book will serve you well as a launching pad to a new professional career.

This is the book I loan only to very responsible friends. After dozens of html and web site development books this is the best, with good real world advice. Just because you can add those flashing icons to your site doesn't mean you should. Selling on the web is more than html.Thanks Hamptons

There is now a second edition of the book, available on Amazon.Com, ISBN 0205459404. It's a better book in a lot of ways, partly based on user feedback, and partly on changes in the technology. Check it out.

Check- subject matter expertise.
Check- use of the web for learning (whether academic, professional, self-directed, or corporate)
Check- understanding of the key issues.

Now you need a resource showing you how to make it all work effectively, and give you new ideas. This is where Curriculum Webs fits in- whether corporate HR intranet or K12 science projects, or anywhere in-between.

`Curriculum Webs' is clear, well-illustrated and thorough, with lots of examples giving you the confidence to move forward.

Chapters span:
- planning- context, process
- curriculum goals- learners, subject, pre-requisites, rationales
- learning activities- individualizing, grouping, activities
- gathering web resources- bookmarks, searching, evaluation (m, copyright issues
- designing effective websites- audience, information and materials, visual metaphors, navigation, chunking
- laying out web pages- design, white space, colo(u)r, styles, moving, frames/tables
- multimedia
- interactivity
- organizing ands assessing learning
- evaluating and maintaining curriculum webs
-teaching
- teaching teachers- training, standards, organizations
- appendix- servers, clients, browsers, bandwidth, names/URLs, html

Note: steers away from eLearning hype (although misses opportunity for entertaining eLearning anecdotal sidebars!).

Overall, a very worthwhile, vendor neutral, action-focused workbook on practical eLearning.

Harnessing the World Wild Web to enhance and expand curriculum and students access to knowledge and constructive information have become an important and viable vehicle to me as a school administrator. However, using this tool efficiently and educationally poses many challenges and requires new training for teachers and schools. I have found Cunningham An Billinsley's Curriculum Webs to be a rare, unique and excellent guide for educators and school administrators in preparing them to explore, utilize and maximize the benefits the web has to offer to education, as well as in creating their own units and webs for practically every subject matter and curricular area. The book takes you step by step through all the essential stages and components in the process of creating a traditional curriculum and applies them to the creation of a web based curricular unit. Its web companion provides and interactive hands-on way to easily implement the newly acquired skills, In addition to the ease and clarity it presents from a technical standpoint, it offers wonderful insights about instructional methods and strategies, based on the most current research in the field of learning and education. The book is delightful to read, uses relevant examples, is easily applicable, and is reflective and thought provoking. A must for teachers, teachers to be, and parents who wish to use the great possibilities of virtual learning to enhance their children's critical thinking skills, knowledge, individual growth, progress, and pursuit of personal interests.

My Cyber Saver has saved my life more than once! I make sure I write down all my passwords and log on info in my cyber saver whenever I visit a new site. I keep my cyber saver right next to my desk top, so when I need it I can just grab it and look up any of the many passwords that I use.It is a great book. It makes a great gift too, especially for teachers or researchers!!

Being a novice at the computer and an infant on the Internet, the
Cyber Saver was an answer to my inability to remember addresses
for websites that I would see on television or read in magazines
and books--not to mention business associates, friends & family!

In the past I would call my sister or nephew to ask the same
question--what was that search engine or how do I find this or
that!

Now I just look it up in my personalized address book! It's
great.

I received the Cyber Saver Deluxe as a birthday present. It is
one of the most valuable additions to my desktop computer. With
the easy to read, divided sections I am able to personalize all
my business email addresses and personal, favorite websites that
in the past were notes pasted everywhere and eventually misplaced.

I would highly recommend it to anyone who is organized and even
more to those who want to be. The black padded binder is refill-
able and looks great. I have already purchased several for gifts
this holiday season. These are well worth their inexpensive
price and are great gifts for those who use their computers to
keep in touch.

I found a lot of very good, practical information for keeping safe on-line. I thought the writing was clear and easy to understand. I've bought two additional copies to send to young people in my family who use the web a lot.

This is the book I've been searching for! My kids and I both use the Internet, but since they are more adept than I am at web-surfing and chatrooms, I needed to become savvy at heading off the dangers they could encounter. Joan Vos MacDonald provides a much needed map of the terrain, and specifics on how to avoid and deflect trouble. Cybersafety is sensible and respectful of both parents and kids, undermining neither. Now, I can talk to my kids without being alarmist or playing cop, and I also have a better appreciation for their choices and activities on the Net. I highly recommend Cybersafety, especially to read aloud and discuss!

Joan Vos MacDonald has managed to give us web-surfers a much-needed security blanket. She has written an insightful book that makes us aware of the ignorance, and, perhaps, naivete, with which we approach the worldwide web. If any of us assumed that surfing the internet was a secure and, somewhat innocuous, exercise, Cybersafety: Surfing Safely Online has brought our mistaken assumptions to light. This book should be on everyone's MUST READ list, and should make its way to every parents Christmas stocking.

This is a very good book! It delves into the details right from the start. I recommend this book to anyone in the data communications field. It can be a bit dry and complex, but the material is complete and after two or so perusals is easy to understand. This book was used in my graduate course for data communications. Excellent book!

Excellent book. I have read first edition (1992) and now it is one of my best reference at the university where I teach.

I am going to buy this last edition to keep updated.

I have been using Fred Halsall's book in my computer engineering degree and it has been very useful. This is a dense, fat book that will provide lots of information. It covers the basics, from the essential theory about digital transmission, protocol basics and implementation methods, legacy and wireless LANs, HS LANs, transparent and source routing bridges, packet switching and frame relay networks/protocols, internetworking architectures, protocols and routing algorithms, multiservice broadband networks, TCP/IP and OSI application protocols, data encryption and network security, network management structures like SNMP and CMIP and other stuff. I can complain about some of the excessive use of acronyms that leave some areas of the book much harder to read. I'm talking about hundreds of acronyms here.

Also, Fred's writing is sometimes a bit too dry, sometimes forgetting to give the reader a general idea about the subject, instead of just jumping into all the details. This is something that is better done in other books, especially Andrew Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks". Tanenbaum also shares his sense of humour, which, in a dense volume about telecommunications, ends up refreshing the user. Also, Tanenbaum's dares to share his opinion sometimes, something Halsall seldom does, giving us only the facts and nothing more. But if it's the facts you want, he's good at it.

I found most of the book clear; the section about Huffman data compression for instance, was excellent. I remember having some trouble with the Viterbi EC algorithm, which isn't very well explained. The book also lacks information about some more modern technologies like GSM.

In general, this is a very competent title, and a great resource to the student or the computer professional. Be sure to check Andrew S. Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks", since you might prefer it to this title, or, the perfect choice, get both. (I have them both and some subjects are a lot better in one book, and others are a lot better in the other title).

Book is well written, easy to read, great help for anyone who has to deal with data quality issues. It brings systematic approach to data quality testing.

My business, Northwest Database Services, has cleaned clients' data for over 20 years. In all that time I've only met two or three people who do this kind of work professionally on a regular basis. (Our conventions are small.)

With this in mind, it is easy to see why I was so pleased and surprised to find someone had written a book about the subject; especially as thoughtful and insightful a one as Quality Data Assessment.

Arkady Maydanchik brings years of experience and first-hand knowledge to the table, while organizing it into a logical, sequential and, most important, understandable manual. This book goes into the typical causes of data degradation as well as how to find it and begin the process of fixing it.

You can't even begin to fix your data until you have a clear picture of what's going on "in there", so data assessment is the first and maybe the most important step in achieving data consistency and reliability. If your work involves data assessment, migration creation or maintenance, you should have this book on your shelf. It's that simple.

But wait, there's more. This is just the first volume in a set of data assessment and cleaning processes, tips, tricks and tools books that will be forthcoming. I'm told that the second volume in this series will be published in October 2008. I know it sounds incredibly geeky, but I can hardly wait.

Data quality analysts and practioners needed this step by step guide to assess the quality of the data in their organization. The book is well organized, it's very practical and easy to understand. The examples are excellent and meaningful and the author has an interesting sense of humor.

Nutshell review - This is an excellent book on worm history, development, detection and defense. If you want a book covering computer worms then this is for you.

(...)

It is not very common to see an unusual security book nowadays as many authors cover every subject. However, such sexy subject as worms, did not, in my opinion, receive adequate coverage. This book does fill this important niche effectively!

It starts from motivation sections that, if not exciting, provide a good intro and immerses the reader into the subject and how to approach it (worm analysis principles).

It then goes into: five worm components: reconnaissance, attack, communication, command, intelligence. Lots of nice details on all worm activities are in there. One of the book's advantages is author's clear writing style, easy and enjoyable to read, even if you know the subject already.

Worm traffic is the highlight of the book as well as trends and infection patterns. Traffic analysis (linked to worm traffic patterns) is described from the basics and lab setup to advanced worm hunting. The techniques include volume monitoring, new scans/sweeps, change in traffic for some systems, etc.

Worm history and taxonomy are also discussed. Also, worm internals and worm construction are covered in great detail. Worm detection goes beyond traffic analysis to honeypots and black hole monitor as well as signatures detection.

Of course, the worm book can't be complete without defenses. The defenses go beyond worms to all malware and are classified into network and host defenses, as well as counterattacking the worm population and networks.

Future worms - as usual - is the most exciting part. Overall, the book is fun and useful (in my opinion) for both researchers and practitioners. Among its negative sides I can only list its relatively high price.

(...)

Publishing a book on a subject as dynamic as internet worms can never result in a complete volume. The near-weekly outbreaks of modified versions of old worms and completely new designs is enough to frustrate the efforts of even the most prolific anti-virus software developers, let alone those who try to provide an overview of their study. Nevertheless, Nazario accomplishes a clear and concise summary of the state of worms today. Seeded by a paper ('The Future of Internet Worms', Nazario, Anderson, Connelly, Wash) written in 2001, Defense Against Internet Worms encourages the reader to focus on the directions worm development might take in the future, with a specific view toward anticipation of, and prepartion for, future attacks.

The book begins with a discussion of the departure worms take from traditional computer virii. An outline of the benefits for the black-hat toward a worm-based attack, as well as a brief analysis of the threat model posed by worms, provide ample reason for the computer security professional to take the study of internet worms very seriously. Beyond this introduction, the book is laid out in four major sections. The first introduces to the reader some background information crucial to the study of worms. The author discusses the history and taxonomy of past worm outbreaks, from their sci-fi origins (think John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider") through modern-day outbreaks. A thorough analysis of various worms' traffic patterns is presented, with data broken down by infection rates, number of infected hosts, and number of sources probing specific subnets. Finally, the construction and lifecycle of worms are presented, with particular attention paid to the interaction between the worms' propagation techniques and the progression of their lifecycles.

The second section of the book (ch. 6 - 8) studies the trends exhibited by past worm outbreaks. Beginning with an examination of the processes and mechanisms of infection, it progresses on to a survey of the network topologies generated by a worm's distribution. Specific infection patterns are examined, along with case studies of worm outbreaks that have exhibited such patterns. Further, this section examines the common characteristics of vulnerable targets, from older UNIX and VMS mainframes through desktop systems onward to infrastructure equipment and embedded systems. A discussion of the payload transmission methods that have made recent worm attacks so devastatingly effective, and an explaination of why liberal use of a clue-hammer on users is not by itself enough to control and prevent further outbreaks, complement chapter nine's analysis and speculation of the future of internet worms.

Section three (ch. 9 - 11) focuses on worm detection strategies, and is more distinctly aimed at the already-overworked network security professional. Effective methods of detecting scans and analyzing a worm's scan engine are presented with a focus on timely and efficient protection from further infection. Monitoring techniques for quickly recognizing, analyzing and responding to worm outbreaks leads into a detailed description of well-placed honeypots and dark network monitors ("black holes"). Discussion of the (so-far) most effective method of worm detection, signature analysis, completes the section, and covers host-based and logfile signatures, along with a brief overview of analyzing logfiles using commonly available utilities.

The final section of the book (ch. 12 - 16), per the book's namesake, aims at defense strategies against worm outbreaks. Beginning with the obvious first steps which anyone reading the book ought to have implemented (firewalls, virus detection software, sandboxing, and patching-patching-patching), the section progresses into less widely used but equally important proxy-based defense methods, and continues on to cover slowing down infection rates and fighting back against existing worm networks. For the sake of thoroughness, an overview of the legal implications of attacking worm nodes receives its fair share of attention simply to alert the reader of the dangers of proactive defense.

Defense Against Internet Worms is decidedly aimed at the experienced network security professional, but holds a much broader appeal than most technical books. With its thorough historical analysis of worm progression over the past thirty years, anyone with even a remote interest in the past, present or future of the only network security issues to consistently make headlines in the mainstream press will find this both an entertaining and enlightening read. Overall, it makes a valuable addition to any geek's bookshelf.

As the world continues to march to information on the Internet, the issue of accessibility for Web sites has continued to grow in importance. Especially as glitz and flashy programming grow ever more popular in Web design, the chance of leaving those with special needs behind increases. What accessibility means also can be a murky area, though as lawsuits against Target and other stores over Web accessibility shows, this is still important. Sydik helps cut through the often vague standards to show the reader step-by-step things that are important for accessibility, but often are not major changes. He explains what accessibility entails, and looks at different solutions, and the pitfalls that some can produce making things worse for accessibility when it is trying to improve it. His chapters are grouped into thematic sections, but each chapter focuses on one item, keeping the information short and relevant to the topic. At the conclusion he walks through the current and proposed accessibility standards and gives practical advice and translation of what the sections mean, and what you can do about it (citing chapters that addressed the topic). This book is very readable, practical and sits on my desk for quick reference and advice. It is an excellent starting point for acquainting yourself with the issue of accessibility for Web sites and what you can do to help design them properly.

Jeremy's Design Accessible Web Sites provides practical advice alongside with the theoretical underpinnigs in upbeat style. This books covers actionable steps to take in fixing many common accessibility problems but it also does something more important. It gives the reader a theoretical framework for considering and solving accessibility issues for tricky scenarios.

Some other books are better on regulatory issues and others on multimedia items like Flash since the focus here is web site design. That said, it's a great read for web site design and web standards work. For that it's first rate, with modern techniques and consideration of the future of accessibility issues (AJAX, WCAG 2), and with a breadth and richness of subject matter.

DESIGN ACCESSIBLE WEB SITES is an excellent guide to making your web site(s) usable by anyone, regardless of their access needs. It is also not the dry and unfriendly tome that others have put out in regards to this subject...that is to say, it is very readable, even fun in some places! There are plenty of code examples as well as lists of specific tools and references that can be used to make your site accessible to everyone.
It concentrates mainly on the U.S. accessibility requirements, but it also covers what you need around the world.
Most importantly, Jeremy stresses that making your web sites accessible makes them easier for EVERYONE to navigate, not just those individuals with special access needs, and that is a bonus for everyone!

A great tech/business crossover book. Provides specifics on how the technology described can help your business save time and money by automating responses to customers. James has really developed an important technology that can have a positive impact on many businesses if they chose to apply it.

In this time of heightened security concerns, this technology provides key capabilities. By allowing secure access to existing information without the need to create elaborate Web interfaces, desktop hosting makes better security attainable for every business. The full working version of the software helped me get up and running, and this book guided me through the process with ease.

This book was a good read for me. The author makes some good points on how the nature of desktop hosting can shape how the web can and should be utilized for unattended communication. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants good techinical information on desktop hosting as well as business owners who want to leverage more of the web for e-business.

Sharp, concise, cutting edge. This book is the first of it's kind (may we hope for more?) and will guide and support you in your IP Services endeavors.

I found this book to be an excellent resource for this topic, and being the first book of its kind, it is quite timely.

This book is a gem for anyone marketing and developing IP products / services as it covers the process from concept, feasibility, business plan, and technical considerations.

The case studies included also earn the authors practicality points, since they have been able to deliver experience to us readers, having the big time hands on that they have shared.

By the way, in case you have a chance to hear author Monique Morrow speak to Telecom and IP professionals, check her out - her "stage presence" is worth the time and admission...!