Internet Books

It is a practical book. Useful tips. If the pictures in color would be better.

Reviewed by Josef F. Buenker for Reader Views (2/08)

I don't know if I'll actually ever do it, but this book made me want to buy things in order to sell them on eBay. Daren and Nancy Baughman, the authors, are in the auction, resale and eBay business. Nancy's (she seems to be the primary author) interest and enthusiasm for her business clearly shows.

Although in certain parts the book had some spelling and grammatical errors, the author/editor's apparent reliance on spellcheck does not detract from the book. "Buy It, Sell It, Make Money" does a nice job of explaining the business of buying and selling "luxury" goods - the term "luxury" being determined by the reader's own lifestyle. Whether one is interested in trading up an item he or she already owns by selling it and buying a better model or one wants to acquire something new, this book could be of great assistance in the process.

After a general explanation of the best venues to acquire and sell various types of items (buying and selling furniture is somewhat different than dealing in modern art), the authors give the reader a very handy guide to the best brand names in a number of common "luxury" item categories, ranging from art to clothing to jewelry to toys.

This book was an interesting read. Anyone who has ever had aspirations of being in the resale or retail business will probably find "Buy It, Sell It, Make Money" interesting.

Very good book - informative and interesting - provides useful information - I reccomend it.

This is a great book that I recommend. I purchased the book for the guide but it provided so much more. I have been selling on eBay part time but was always in need of things to sell - NO MORE. Thanks to this book, my husband and I went to our first storage shed auction (recommended by the authors) and we purchased one full of great things. Inside the shed we purchased are some great antiques, some very nice china, some English porcelain figurines, tools but the best was a jewelry box. The jewelry box had 2 14kt gold necklaces and a 14kt gold ring with a beautiful ruby. It also was filled with tons of very nice costume jewelry! We are going to make a ton of money off this one purchase - thank you Daren and Nancy for this wonderful book - I Bought it - I'm selling it - and I am MAKING MONEY -- YA

My husband and I have been selling on ebay for about three years now, and we're always looking for new information to help improve our business. This book gave us a lot of great ideas which we put into action the first week after reading. It's an easy book to read and understand, and we both couldn't put it down until we were finished reading. If you're not into ebay, it also gives great advise on other avenues for selling your goods. Buy this book, you'll be pleased!

It seems that everybody likes this book so I won't waste your time writing another long review.
This book is by far the best Cisco book I've read, and I've read a few. It's full of detail and a very very good starting point for QOS.

The team of Cavanaugh & Odom have hit a homerun here. This book has everything; Sex, Politics, Intrigue, Suspense, Greed, Betrayal and Redemption. Well, okay, it has none of that. But, it does have everything that the Experienced Networker could want to know about Quality of Service, and it's role and implementation within today's rapidly converging internetnetworks. The authors have proven to be knowledgeable, insightful and easy to understand. And, while this book may seem "overly long" to many, it strives to give fairly complete coverage of this important matter regarding today's internetworking environment. This is a very important point when your seeking to spend some "quality time" with a Cisco certification exam (not mention some quality cash on an exam).

Cavanaugh & Odom have moved beyond the normal course of just re-editing Cisco TAC web content for bound, portable consumption that is the hallmark of many of Cisco Press' previous publications. While the layout will be familiar to previous C.P. readers, the actual format and content presentation is fresh. Each chapter's order and flow strongly adheres to the tried and true, but Illustrations, Diagrams, Scenarios and Examples are not just simply reprinted fare from Cisco's website. Each chapter's content is easily on par with all other Authors/Publishers that are typically quoted as being "easier to digest and understand". Even the book's index is surprisingly extensive and comprehensive, and misses very few important items. When the working examples actually are repackaged from Cisco's web content, the explanations and follow-throughs are incisive and accurate. Knowledge and understanding can be gained from every page without overkill or excessive repetition.

Any exam candidate seeking an in-depth review and preparation for the Cisco QOS or DQOS exams will find this book a treasure trove chocked full of the expected scenerios, examples and practice questions. All networking professionals should strongly consider stocking this in their personal reference collection for handy lookups to otherwise difficult QOS problems. However, I caution one, if you're seeking a quick and simple introduction to QOS, or looking to "break into" or "get their foot in the door" of internetworking, you should go elsewhere. This is definitely not the kiddy end of the pool. But then again, it certainly won't require the deep sea background of a CCIE either. This manual may start with the foundations of QOS but it very quickly ramps up to a professional-level internetworking reference. This is a book that goes beyond the classroom and heads straight for the real world.

As my industry and workplace move further towards voice and data "Convergence", this book has quickly become my working cookbook for smoothing out tough QOS implementation questions. And, It shall remain an important part of my desktop reference library for a long time to come.

I recently read the book titled "Cisco DQOS Exam Certification Guide" by Wendell Odom, ISBN: 1587200589.
This book takes the user through the topic of Deploying Quality of Service in Cisco networks to a new level of knowledge. QoS has become one of the hottest if not the hottest topic in enterprise and medium size business networks. The ability to control traffic based on its priority and the ability to prioritize the traffic based on any number of criteria has become a required skill in today's marketplace. To Quote from Cisco's Web Site "Quality of Service (QoS) is an essential element to building a flexible, accessible, and efficient network. Its role in multiple technologies underlines the need for most networking professionals to master the features that implement QoS" The advent of Cisco's AVVID network and the proliferation of IP telephone services and applications along with the advancement in Video Conferencing and Group Collaboration software have created an unprecedented need for Quality of Service implementation. This book is filled with examples and thorough explanations of many complicated and essential configurations. The authors display a thorough knowledge of this sometimes difficult and always challenging subject. There are numerous charts and graphs to help aid in understanding the concepts presented. This book takes the reader step by step through configuration of all of the commonly use techniques and gives the user a good understanding of not only how to enter the commands but also what the commands do and how they interact. The topics covered in this book will give a CCIE R/S candidate essentially all of the skills needed for the QoS portions of the CCIE Practical Exam. The book covers all of the currently available traffic prioritization and queuing methods in a high degree of detail. It is, I think, geared towards an audience of knowledgeable professionals who already have some knowledge in the area of QoS. The book provides a reader with the tools necessary to implement virtually any needed QoS features in his/her own network. I would rate it as a MUST HAVE reference for anyone who might be required to implement QoS in a Cisco environment. This is a winner for Cisco Press. It proves once again the commitment to excellence of Cisco Press and delivers a book that is very useful to anyone involved in the implementation of the topic it covers. The authors have taken a difficult subject and broken it down into manageable chunks. At the end of the day the user will have a good understanding of the broad topic of QoS and have the tools necessary to implement it in a Cisco environment.

CiscoPress's "Cisco DQOS Exam Certification Guide" by Odom is a best-of-class book. The book is not for the meek - weighing in at over 850 pages, the book is a sizable investment of time and energy to properly appreciate. While the book was mainly written to be utilized for a few QoS exams, I'd expect to see this book on the bookshelf of many CCIEs or CCIE wannabes (including myself).

The beauty of this book is that it covers QoS in a depth that is not equaled elsewhere. For example, the book's first chapter, simply an overview of QoS, is almost 80 pages (some overview)! The first chapter succinctly describes the differences and nuances of the enemies of QoS - delay, jitter, bandwidth and packet loss. The second and third chapters do a great justice at trying to explain the dizzying array of tools available to adjust QoS - the different classes of tools and the differences between classification and marking. And so forth..., each chapter does a great job at explaining the mysteries of QoS.

Of course, with any book of such complexity, typos must be expected. Two typos that I noticed are:
-on page 333, I believe the correct Bc should be 93.75ms.
-on page 456, FRED can match on layer 4, not layer 3 protocols

If I had a `Top 10' for books that I feel would be necessary for the CCIE, I would place this book on the list. I have not been able to find the same explanations for QoS on Cisco's website or in other networking books.

I give this book 5 pings out of 5:
!!!!!

Let me just start off by saying that I wish I had Wendell Odom's Cisco DQoS Exam Certification Guide a few months ago when I was studying for this exam. I had looked at a number of other Cisco Press and non-Cisco Press books and could not find one that adequately covered the topics in the exam. This one covers all of them and more.

The book starts off by listing all the exam topics that will be covered in both DQoS 9E0-601 and QOS 642-641 exams and then explains how to interpret those often nebulous expectations. Do not get me wrong. It does not give you a blow by blow of what is on the exam but rather informs you of how test makers come up with course objectives and a method to use in studying. I found this very helpful. In fact, I wish someone had taught me that as a freshman in college.

If you are familiar with Cisco Press Exam Certification Guides you will not be disappointed in the familiar format. Each chapter starts with an overview and "Do I Know This Already?" quiz. I always find these helpful in determining my level of knowledge on a particular subject and those areas I need to study.

It then proceeds to the meat of each chapter. They are filled with many useful diagrams and tables that do a wonderful job complimenting and expanding Odom's covering of each chapter. There are plenty of switch and router configurations that also provide help in giving real life examples of how QoS is implemented.

Each chapter then wraps up with an excellent Foundation Summary and Q&A section. Answers to the questions are found in an appendix in the back of the book.

In general I found all of the topics covered as well, if not better, than the DQoS class I took to study and pass the test. In particular I found the first two chapters great in providing a great overview of QoS, its architectures and tools. I have used Odom's example of bank teller lines, with a number of customers, to provide a way of explaining the difficult topic of QoS and it quickly resonates with them.

I also found the last two chapters on QoS Design and LAN QoS very useful. The LAN QoS chapter provides information on the 3550s and latest Modules/Supervisor Engine cards for the Catalyst 6500 and 4500/4000. I have already used this information as a resource on a project. The design chapter has also been useful in helping me "flesh out" customer's goals and providing design recommendations based upon those goals.

In conclusion, I always feel that for a study guide to truly be useful, it must have some use after the exam. Wendell Odom's Cisco DQoS Exam Certification Guide certainly does that well. It will not only be sufficient in providing you the information that you need to study for and pass the test, but it will certainly be useful as a quick reference guide on many of the topics covered. I plan on having it with me from the project planning stages to the optimizing and troubleshooting stages (although if your good and follow his teachings on the former you probably will not have much of the latter). Thanks Wendell for another well written and useful book.

A very good reference guide for any new/existing cme/cue deployment. Specifically the sample config guides were very useful. Overall this book is well written.

Cisco IP Communications Express: CallManager Express with Cisco Unity Express (ISBN 1-58705-180-X) is an all-in-one resource for configuring, managing, and troubleshooting the Cisco CallManager Express (CME) solution. It is almost 900 pages and is well organized into five parts: overview, feature operation and applications, administration and management, maintenance and troubleshooting, and appendices. If you are involved in configuring or maintaining the Cisco CallManger Express, this book will provide you with all the information you need to get your work done.

Cisco CME is an integrated solution offered by Cisco for meeting the IP telephony needs of small businesses or branch offices. The CME solution, which consists of the call processing feature and the voice mail feature, runs on the Cisco routers ranging from the 1700 series to the 3700 series and beyond. Whereas the CallManager suite offers centralized approach to building out an enterprise wide VoIP network, the CME is meant to serve the needs of smaller businesses or to integrate seamlessly into the larger, enterprise solution.

The book is well written and starts out with a high level architecture of the deployment scenarios for CME. The second part gets into the features and applications side of the solution. This part is where the crux of the book lies. It presents a detailed coverage of the commands used to configure the CallManager solution under various scenarios such as implementing different call features, integrating VoIP with PSTN, and deploying CME as part of a larger CallManager solution. This part presents a thorough coverage of Unity Express (UE), the voicemail module of the CME. The third part relates to the management of CME. Particularly useful in this part is a real-life configuration example as it illustrates and brings together a lot of the material covered in the earlier part of the book. Part four gets into the essential topic of troubleshooting the CME solution. It provides useful tips and solutions for common problems found in deploying the call processing and voice mail aspects of CME. This is definitely a very useful section of the book. The last part, the appendices, has reference materials and scripts used in the book to make daily tasks easier etc.

One of the strong points of the book is a multitude of sample configurations. The authors provide sample configurations throughout the book to help illustrate the concepts being presented. This sample configuration goes a long way if the reader has the task of actually configuring CME. The other strong point of the book is the depth of coverage given to each topic that is discussed. With the exception of a handful of topics (one in particular which I'll mention), the book never glosses over any topic; rather it covers it in detail, ensuring that most aspects of the topic are addressed. The exception to this was the coverage of the D/A module(s) used for attaching analog devices to CME, such as a fax machine. Given that analog fax machines still constitute a critical part of any business, I would expect this topic to be covered in detail. However, I found that no configuration examples were provided on how to configure this in the CME suite.

In summary, this book is a great all-in-one reference for configuring and managing CME. I would highly recommend it to any professional tasked with working on Cisco's CallManager Express.

overall this book is very good. I like the examples it presents to make thing clear, and also the broadness of topics it covers.
Since Cisco IP Telephony evolves so quickly, I wish Cisco will release newer editions with updated technologies. in particular I was hoping this book should contribute some to SIP and its deployment in UCME environment.

I've used this book as a main reference for my first complete implementation of CCME and CUE. I said "main" reference instead of "only" reference, because there are few small gaps to be filled by Cisco on-line documentation, but the deficiencies are too small to justify anything less than 5 stars. Additionally, there is a lot of general (IP and traditional) telephony information so even a relative beginner, after reading this book, will be able to intelligently interview future users (Chapter 5 is simply brilliant!), design quite complex system with many fancy call features, and even create scripts for quite sophisticated Auto-Attendant options. Certain concepts are not explained in complete detail (for example dial peers or voice ports), but deeply enough for the needs of CCME.

A must have book


This book is a great tool for full and complete understanding of Cisco's IP Communication Express. The structure is geared to first provide a foundation with an overview, then moves into design and implementation the book is organized into different parts that provide great coverage of all aspects.

Part I starts with introducing IP Communication. The coverage begins by taking you on a journey into what Cisco IPC is, the benefits of IPC, and the architecture of IPC networks. The one thing you notice is that the authors took great care in organizing the chapters. Each chapter is well written and easy to follow along. This makes the book a great choice as either a first learning book or as a refresher book for experienced professionals looking to augment their knowledge. One of the first chapters shows you the features and functions of the various gateways, WAN interfaces and IP phones available for use in an IPC network. This allows you to pick the best equipment for your particular solution. I believe this is great because it allows you learn some features of the product in order to decide if you would like to research it further; this helps streamline the process of design and political issues. Another section of the Part 1 goes over the architecture of IPC. You will learn the ins and outs of what happens at a low level. You will learn a-lot of core information; get an introduction to equipment and technologies that can be utilized.


Part II of this book is where the fun begins. Chapter 4 goes over the IP phones in more detail. You are taught about features and how to configure the individual phones. The chapter is short and to the point. Chapter 5 is an incredible book where the engineers' ears will perk up. Call Manager Call processing features are presented in this chapter. The topics here include hunt groups, call parking, shared lines, intercom, paging and much more. I really like the configurations and examples in this book. With this chapter you will be able to quickly implement the CM features.
The next chapter deals with Connectivity to the PSTN. The focuses in this chapter are signaling and how to handle the inputted digits. One of the only faults I think with this book is that chapters 5 and 6 should be swapped.

Part III and IV cover Administration, Management, Maintenance and Troubleshooting
Now is really where the techies cheer up. Here is all the goodies on how to setup CME, UE, and what to do if problems arise. The gold mine is located in these 2 parts.
These chapters provide the reader with detail and examples to help reinforce all that is being explained.

I don't want to spoil this book or be long winded so I will say the remaining pages of this book are well worth the read. It covers everything you need in order to obtain a solid understanding of Cisco's IPC. There is no area that isn't covered with attention to detail. The authors provide quality information that is very useful in all areas of understanding and implementation of Cisco IP Express. The reader will come away with exceptional and relevant knowledge to do anything needed with IPC. I got this book to help augment my 4+ years with Cisco Voice products, I feel that it did help cement my knowledge and also taught me quite a few new things.


Brion S. Washington

An excellent book! but if the author can put all the configurations online, and make the scinarios more realistic with more practical exercises, this would be a masterpiece in this area. It is much better than other Cisco CCVP books in many respects. Thank you, the authors, who took readers into consideration when writing this book!

I picked up a copy of "Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers" to use as a study guide for the Implementing Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers (642-453 GWGK). This book was enormously helpful in successfully passing the exam. With that said, this is not an official Cisco Press exam study guide, in fact it cover much more, and was also beneficial to me in passing the CCIE Voice written.

As with most Cisco Press books, the opening chapter covers some basics, in this case the basics of Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers, as well as a high level review of gateway protocols and deployment scenarios.

The subsequent chapters jump right into the meat of the material. Each ensuing chapter covers each topic, such as H.323, SIP, MGCP, Dial Plans, and SRST with great depth and clarity. The book if full of very detailed and comprehensive sample configurations and debug outputs. Finally, the examples throughout the book are based off of the same case study network that is introduced in the opening chapter. As I consider sitting for the CCIE Voice Lab, I anticipate that I will revisit this book again and use the case study in my home lab.

I highly recommend this book to any looking to learning more about Cisco IOS Gateways and Gatekeepers, studying for the CCVP, and/or preparing for the CCIE Voice!

Mark G. Reyero, CCIE 12932

As a person studying for my Voice CCIE, this book is invaluable. It covers a wide range of topics in a coherent, well-articulated fashion. After perusing this book, I finally figured out exactly what an IPIPGW was and how exactly it worked with a VIA gatekeeper.

If you are studying for you Voice CCIE, do yourself a favor and pick up this book.

This book is intended for network engineers, IP Telephony engineers, and Telco engineers who are tasked with the installation, configuration, and maintenance of VoIP and IP Telephony networks. This is an intermediate level book and that the reader understands IP networking and at least is familiar with the Cisco courses: CVoice, CIPT, QoS, IPTT. These imply a basic understanding of VoIP and time-division multiplexing (TDM) voice fundamentals, the basic concepts and configuration of basic IP voice routers and Cisco CallManager basics.

This book is not so much an Exam Cram as a more traditional reference book. That is not to say that it doesn't cover the material that will be found on several Cisco certification tests. It gives a firm foundation in the complex VoIP networks that in which Cisco specializes. Obviously this book covers Cisco equipment, but as Cisco is the major manufacturer of such equipment as well as providing for the certification of workers in the field, that's not a bad place to start.

This book has the advantage of a very good writing style by the three authors. This is important as I don't find computer books to be nearly as much fun to read as say a good sci-fi novel.

I work for a large Cisco reseller and purchase many Cisco Press books to augment knowledge base and assist with best-practices. I have to say that this book is one of the best Cisco Press books I've ever purchased and probably the best Cisco Press AVVID book.
I've been searching for a comprehensive source for DSP information and deployment guidelines, and COR theory. This book does an excellent job on explaining both. It is a must for anyone working with or provisioning DSPs.
In other matters, it is well written and talks plainly of other gateway technologies that AVVID engineers run into day-after-day.
If your looking for VoIP books, this is a must for your library.

This is a great book for a quick hands on learning for XML. I really like it and it solved my problems. I always thought parsing the XML was too damn confusing but with this book I now completely understand the DOM and SAX parsing.

This book does a great job of introducing the basic concepts and getting you into code soon, so you can see the concepts and syntax in action. The topics included XML, CSS, XSLT and XPath, DOM, SAX, and XML Schemas. All these abbreviations are explained in the book. The core concepts are well introduced without being overwhelmed in syntax, and advice if often given on what is best to use (for example "Can I use DOM or SAX instead of XSLT?").

The use of an 8 character "CodeNote pointer" allows obtaining additional information from the codenotes web site while keeping the book a readable size and price. For example the paper chapter on SAX included examples in Java, but the online "CodeNotes" allows obtaining the source in Visual Basic. In the chapter on installation, I found both the instructions on the book and the online web site out of date, so they might want to update the web. The online notes on Sample architectures was particularly helpful, so don't neglect the section on "additional material" at the front of the book. I would have also liked an actual completed application demonstrated online.

This book is probably the best value of any of the technical book I've purchased. At only $..., this book covers all the important aspects of XML in a very understable and enjoyable way. It's laid out well and the examples (and following explanations) are clear and very helpful. If only all technical books could be written this well. And is that the most aesthetically pleasing cover you've ever seen or what?

This book presents the core of XML in an organized, no-nonsense fashion. If you need to get up to speed quickly on XML this book is a great investment (and quite inexpensive too).

I used this in conjunction with an Infusion class I took and what a great book! fantastic job!

You have to keep in mind that this is written by a real estate agent, so he really has an agent's best interests in mind, not yours as a buyer or seller. That said, the book does contain a complete survey of buying/selling homes (mostly buying, actually), assisted by online websites. I found the text too verbose, and I wonder if the publisher or author gets paid for the sites they recommend, for a lot of other useful sites aren't mentioned at all.

Over a year ago I borrowed this book from a friend, and read through it during the entire process of my first purchase of a house. It helped very easily to follow all that was happening, all the terminology, etc. and in some cases, to be ahead, and expect the next steps.

It was so helpful, that I decided to buy it for myself this year, as we're considering the sale of our place, and getting us a larger house.

If you're going to buy or sell a house, you have got to read it: it'll be of extreme help.

This book made my life so much easier by explaining in easy to follow steps how to do everything i needed to sell homes and purchase a new one. It is very thorough, covers all topics from A to z and the recommendations on web sites were right on. The author knows his stuff. This is the first Idiot's Guide book I've bought and I'm so glad i did.

I had to take the time to review this book because my husband and I almost lost our dream home. This superb book helped us save our transaction at the last minute and avoid a horrible lawsuit. Thank God a friend referred us to this book or we wouldn't be living in the perfect home for us. We were buying a home For Sale By Owner and were working with the most difficult seller imaginable. With the help of this guide we not only salvaged the deal, but got better terms and more repairs made to the home. Thank you so much to the author and publisher for writing this book-it's phenomenal. The negotiating chapter is worth thousands of dollars. And to all those buying or selling homes By Owner or even with Realtors-don't do anything until you buy this book. You will be so glad you did.

I got this book for my dad for Father's Day because he and my mother are planning on selling their home and buying a smaller home. the For Sale By Owner comments in some of the other reviews caught my eye because my parents want to sell their home themselves. I started looking through the guide out of curiosity and found myself reading more than half the book. Besides being informative and detailed, it's actually interesting and somewhat funny. i ended up giving it to my father early and he read the entire guide in two days. he said it was the first time he's ever read a how-to book from cover to cover and he's bought over 50! i recommend this book to all people who are planning on buying and selling a home in the future (which is just about everybody) because it is exceptionally clear, informative and jam-packed with advice, facts and data. And it makes a great gift. My dad loved it and is using it to get their home ready to sell By Owner.

I jumped into Cybergypsies with one quick bound..it grabbed me as its prisoner until the very end..Zany characters prance in and out to the click of the keyboard and the roar of the modem..I found myself being caught up in the frantic pace..neither here nor there..from one world to the next and back again in a split second.Jarley remains the true Hero!Bear his Alter ego! A wild burst of wind speeds the characters on into the nether world of the cyber addict. A delightful bit of intrigue worthy of Ian Fleming with all the wild hilarity of Kurt Vonnegut. A good read to the very end!

In the mid-'80s, Sinha, a London ad writer, became seriously addicted to the earliest and most fanatical internet outposts--multiuser games and bulletin boards frequented by hackers, virus makers, software pirates, dungeons and dragons role players and other "cybergypsies". How this nice married father of two with a new house in Sussex almost lost it all to his modem becomes an enchanting tale, full of jarring, hallucinatory, humorous blurrings between worldly and wired events. So many books have tried to capture the heady horizons and disappointing mirages of cyberspace; Sinha's beautifully written virtual travelogue actually does--at least one strange corner of it.

A strangely fascinating exploration of the dark side of cyberspace, where virus writers, porno peddlers, and fantasy game fanatics have created an anarchic subculture that blurs reality and imagination...Part Dante, part Bill Gates, part Jack Kerouac--however you categorize this bizarre book, it's worthy of attention.

This story lures you along a path of sheer escapism, and just as you are starting to relax in an imaginary world, drops you into some events that humans in very recent time have had to endure. Events that have been readily ignored by most of us in our "imaginary worlds", such as Bhopal and Kurdistan. So relax into the tale, and be prepared for a jolt.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, for two reasons. Firstly, I should declare a personal interest: I was a colleague of Mr Sinha's during the period in which the events (all true, I believe) described in the book took place. Secondly, as a person of similar mindset, The Cybergypsies helps me to keep uppermost in mind the importance of balance, perspective and 'all things in moderation'. It was a privilege to work with Mr Sinha, and a great pleasure to read his powerful, elegant, intelligent prose - without being seduced into buying something! I have no doubt that this book will become a legendary volume, describing the beginnings of the internet. Indra Sinha successfully illuminates the significant events of his lifetime, capturing the essence of net culture. He blends story, characters and background detail to spellbinding effect. The Cybergypsies is a page-turner that left me exhilerated, sated and wiser. Balu, you are indeed a love god. Bomshanka.

For those engineers who start their first embedded Linux project, this book is a must have. The book is not for those who want to understand how kernel runs but it gives you the most important concept and work flow to bring up the OS on your development board. The author also provides a useful further reading list in case you want to dig more. A very practical and clearly written book and I would recommend it to those who have solid experience in embedded development but just start to explore in Linux.

This book is very well organized, and provides a good level of detail of the topic. I do recommend it.

I am an experienced embedded developer that just inherited an embedded Linux-based project already in progress. As there happens to be no one else at my company with any embedded Linux experience, I automatically became the de-facto Linux expert and I needed to come up to speed on a lot of topics very quickly. I found this book to be an excellent survey of the must-know topics for the embedded Linux developer. It also contains many references to the most definitive sources of information on the various topics. Highly recommended for coming up to speed on embedded Linux.

Wow!
So far the book proves that embedding Linux while not easy can be fun and interesting. You never know what Tux will do during his startup sequences, even if you did indeed write the stuff the kernel is using for that series of startup steps.

This book, the CALAO SYSTEM USB-A9260 card, an eeePC and a cross over cable is all that you need to study embedded system everywhere (even along the Seine river in Paris - yes I did it !).
The chapters about the U-BOOT bootloader, the BUSYBOX embeded Linux and an extra piece of information on the JFFS2 file system are welcome. If the cross-development environment chapter had been about BUILDROOT, this book would have been THE BOOK for the present embedded Linux based systems designers.

This book teaches you how to think about designing web interfaces for social websites or websites with social features. You will learn a bit about the psychology behind what works well, so you can incorporate the knowledge into your own design.

The book explains how to prioritize features from the initial sign-up through active user participation on the social website. Many industry examples are given along with some of the reasons why each is successful or not.

The book is about designing the user interface and the overall web site experience. It can and should be read by all team members on the web project including: graphic designers, information architects and developers.

I think its an excellent book
Sadly I lost it after reading 1/4 of it
He knows his subject Design for Social Web
and it was very interesting what I read
and there are good diagrams

Judy

I used this book as one of three textbooks in a class I recently taught. This was one of two texts concentrating on social networking. (The other was Derek Powazek's "Design for Community".) The students enjoyed the easy style of the book and the case studies for what works and what does not. The book kicked off more than one interesting discussion on barriers to entry, what makes good design, and how to effectively incorporate social networking tools into a business or non-profit website.

I bought this book a few weeks ago and found it a great introduction to the concepts involved in designing social applications.

Many of the most amazing success stories on the web are social websites (youtube, myspace, facebook, flickr etc), yet books on this topic are hard to find. "Design for Community" by Derek Powazek is one rare exception, I consider it a masterpiece, but it was published in 2001 and it's out of print. Finally we've got some fresh, up to date material. Porter benefits from extensive, first-hand, experience in the field; he has a pragmatic, practical approach to problems, he deliver valuable advice without pretending to know "the ultimate truth" (like many authors do).

I got this book for Christmas and haven't put it down ever since. It really is an outstanding book, showcasing the talents of an international cross section of CG artists. The book is lavishly illustrated with screen grabs of some key steps in the creation of a piece, which greatly helps to understand the artists process/technique. This book, however, doesn't focus on specific techniques as much as on the thought process behind a piece. This book doesn't teach you how to create digital artwork, in fact most of the descriptions assume that you already have a good handle on 3D modeling/texturing/rendering concepts. This is not a tutorial. But the book includes enough information to provide insight into an artist's thinking process. If I may use a movie production analogy, this book is sort of the "behind the scenes" aspect of CG art creation.

The book is beautifully printed in color on good paper stock and the spine is stitched instead of just glued (which is the best way to bind a book).

CONS: There really are no serious downfalls with this book, however from an editorial stand point (I am not a expert at this but...) the book is full of typos and grammatical errors. It doesn't take an English teacher to see that the editors could have done a better job of proofreading and editing the book. I suspect the work was made more difficult given that for a lot of the artists, English was not their first language. However, I think this oversight keeps the book from being a perfect 10 and for a book written in English, this is almost inexcusable.

This is a great book, lots of artwork. Granted, about half of the artwork you could find with a quick google, but its nice to have something real that you can hold. Its also great for the upcoming digital arts apprentice like myself who wants to see how other people's art came to life.

I received this book as a Christmas present about 7 days ago, and havent put it down since. I find myself reading and re-reading the artists procedures and techniques, many of which I plan to try and incorporate into my own workflow. All of the images are masterpieces and have inspired me greatly. Anyone interesting in the realm of digital art, from seasoned artist to novice, should pick this book up for your personal library, you wont be sorry!

This book's 2d & 3d images are beautiful. If your looking for a book to use as inspiration or ref., then this is your book. If your looking for step by step processes on 3d & 2d digital art, then this isn't your book. Digital art masters is more on the theory side of explanations of why they created their art the way they did.

This book is a golden key. If u are an animator or a animation student, U have to read it. :) I bought it & LOVE it.