Internet Books

This book has a great knowledge of all things computer related, DOS, WIndows, Hardware, and more.

It is an awesome resource for all people who work with computers. It has great DOS, Windows and hardware information, and more. It is like a bible to me.

While this is a very good reference, it leaves a lot of room for disappointment. Perhaps its time to replace the resistor color code tables with summaries of the IEEE and ITU standards, certainly something more needed in the 2001 world of PCs. When was the last time anyone changed a resistor in a PC other than at the component manufacturer site? And it doesn't yet contain a power supply wire color code, which would be far more useful than resistor codes. There is info on Win98 but not on Win2K or ME (or even NT). The processor and socket list is hopelessly out of date. Fixed disk drive lists are way behind the times with only the most minimal information to help keep the confusing IDE/SCSI/EIDE PIO 1/2/3/4/5 ATA33/66/100/133 drive, BIOS, MB chipset and cable standards straight.
This is a good book for troubleshooting, repairing and maintaining the older PC, but it is not even treading water well in a world of P4 or Thunderbird processors, multi-gigabyte drives or 400Mhz RIMM memory. Still, I have to give it four stars (would be 4.5 if Amazon allowed) because there simply is nothing better out there except keeping file folders full of manufacturer specs, white papers and web page printouts.

I am a 14 year old and have usued this book to help me build everything from forts to computers, it's GREAT and I would recommend it to everyone!

When I first open this book I thought I was looking at an larger copy of the Pocket PCREF, after reading through it I found that while most of the information included is exactly like the Pocket version there is was more information included.

Large in size and over 875 pages, this reference book includes everything in the Pocket PCREF plus a very extensive glossary, printer control codes and a much larger pc phone directory. Overall a much better value that the Pocket PCREF book.

The material covered is broken down into categories and each category is covered well. The authors take a great deal of time in making sure the information presented is accurate and well documented. For the money this might be the one to have on your desk.

While this book won't fit in your back pocket, it will fit very nicely in a briefcase. An excellent value for the dollar. You might find similar books on the market, but you'll be hard pressed to find any one better. Well Done Sequoia Publishing.

For the last couple of years I have been teaching exclusively on line and have had a lot of fun, undoubtedly too much fun, in playing with the "pages" for my classes. Whereas most of my colleagues were putting together pages of text in their word processing programs and then loading them into the system, I was create each of my pages as a series of blocks, each of which could contain an image and have a different font in a different color with a different background color. In the original system I used I could even make entire pages different colors, so that everything in my Mythology course was yellow because it make the color photographs of Greek pottery show up better, while my Utopian Images class had pages a shade of blue. I was immediately warned that too much "eye candy" could be distracting and reigned myself in so that things would not be too overwhelming, but I was still looking for ways of visually representing information in ways that would be helpful to students.

Consequently, when Valerie Kirschenbaum put together her tome "Goodbye Gutenberg: Hello to a New Generation of Readers and Writers," she was preaching to the choir in my case. The genesis for this work was the question asked by a student in one of her classes as to why books were no longer in color like they used to be? The inquiry was provoked by the sight of the one of the illuminated pages from the Reeve's Tale in "The Canterbury Tales." The answer was that black and white is the easiest and cheapest way to read and write today, but Kirschenbaum recognized that this was a justification built on the profit margins of economics rather than on any principle of education. However, given that books are currently in competition with television, movies, music videos, CD-roms, and the multitude of multimedia available on the Internet, Kirschenbaum argues that it is long past time for the visual dimension of books to be reconceptualized for the 21st century and beyond.

Kirschenbaum did some initial research that indicated that the reluctance to publish literature in color was not really an economic one, but rather cultural. By simply printing Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" in color, she found students were more interested in doing their homework assignment. From such small beginnings Kirschenbaum envisions a Renaissance in books and book design. In "Goodbye Gutenberg" she not only justifies her print revolution in terms of what she considers to be profound, technological, cultural, and historical reasons for such a transformation, she also practices what she preaches, turning virtually every two-page spread in the six chapters that make up the body of this book into the sort of visual displays we would associate with the covers of books and not the simply pages of text that have been printed in black & white for five centuries.

Section 1: Hello to a New Generation of Writers look at the process from the creative end. Kirschenbaum believes there has never been a better time to be a writer and develops the concept of the "Designer Writer," who can write with body language and in the color of the stars, thanks largely to the ability to create original works of art digitally. William Blake is presented as "The Visual Prophet" of this movement, a great poet who was also a great artist and who wrote in different colors.

Section 2: Hello to a New Generation of Readers argues for readers once again being asked to "see" when they read, instead of simply being asked to interpret the standard code of black print on white paper. In a series of comparisons of great works before and after Gutenberg, Kirschenbaum amply illustrates that her great leap forward is based on what happened in the past with hand-printed illustrated books coupled today with computer technology. Looking at cultures of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Mayans, along with that of Islam, she explores the history of the visual "essence" of writing.

Section 3: Hello to a New Generation of Women begins with Christine de Pisan, the "Godmother of Designer Writing," and ends with Kirschenbaum creating her own "Modern Feminine Font" based on her own handwriting. Ultimately, the book is not tied to gender so much as it is to the idea that each writer can create a font as distinctive as their individual handwriting.

Section 4: Beauty and the Book, which begins and ends with black print on white pages, contains in the middle a chapter devoted to the question of what is the role of terror in the arts in the post-September 11th world. But the point of the section is to dismiss the idea that typography, book design, and other aspects of visual communication, are minor art forms. The graphic designer that is Kirschenbaum's ideal rejects both the concerns of being "commercial" and of creating "fine art," in the quest to have a text communicate its meaning to its readers.

Section 5: Hello to a New Generation of Teachers grounds the principles of this book in science and literature. After looking at the role of color in both education and reading, Kirschenbaum devotes chapters to Edgar Allen Poe as "Seer of the Designer Tale," and reconsiders Chaucer, Homer (as the "Birth of the Comic Book"), and Plato as the foundation for a new generation of visual theorists whose goal is to write outside the box.

Section 6: Hello to the Critics and Skeptics anticipates what critics of designer writing will say and pretty much beats them to the bunch, at least with regards to the first round in this debate. The second chapter refutes the idea that "ornament" and "decoration" are suspicious words on trial in the new world of the designer writer.

Section 7: Goodbye Gutenberg reiterates the revaluation of visual values Kirschenbaum proposes and announces the "Dawn of Designer Prose." After sketching out the "Visual Vernacular" of today, she addresses again "The Old Way of Reading" to emphasize that the debate about the future of books is not between print and screen but rather between blocks of black & white text (i.e., the "Gutenberg cliché") and colorfully designed pages. The final "unfinished" chapter, "And So Begin the Beautiful Books" underscores Kirschenbaum's hope that we are "Excited by the possibility" and "inspired by the dream" that she had laid out in this manifesto.

The great irony, of course, is that I am reduced to the Gutenberg cliché to write this review. At least I have the pages of my online courses to play with, even with the limited range of possibilities our current platform system allows. Kirschenbaum makes a compelling case, especially because she overwhelms us with the style she gives her substance. If this is not the most gorgeous book you have ever actually held in your hands, then I would like to see what you think is better. Her title makes it clear that Johannes Gutenberg is her target, but I think it is equally clear that Kirschenbaum's kindred spirit here is Marshall McLuhan because more than any other volume I have read in the past several decades, "Goodbye Gutenberg" instantiates the idea that the medium is the message.

"Different forms of art excite different groups of cells in the brain." Page 242

Get ready to stimulate all those cells in this magnificent book.

There is nothing like this book, anywhere. Think combination text book, coffee table tome and art masterpiece.

Valerie Kirschenbaum has put together a delightful and most interesting work of art - combining unusual works of art from cultures we rarely experience.

If you are looking for the ULTIMATE GIFT for an art lover, history teacher, graphic designer or marketing executive, you won't go wrong with this book. Buy Goodbye Gutenberg to be as memorable a gift-giver to your friend as Kirschenbaum is to the publishing world.

As a publisher myself, I'm seeing, reading and buying new books every day. I am stunned at the beauty of this book - world class quality with world class information, too!

This highly unusual, but creative and visionary work immediately seizes the reader from the first unfolding of the crisp spine. The illustrations, layout, fonts and text, and the way in which they are integrated into a cohesive whole, are positively breathtaking. Ms. Kirschenbaum's original font is easy on the eyes, and her dedication to her work is clearly a labor of love.

Ms. Kirschenbaum's deeply personal style immediately grabs the reader, perhaps too much for those with more ascetic tastes. Yet, after just the first few pages you feel connected to this writer, and she draws you in with impassioned prose. One almost feels compelled to call the insightful author "Val", or perhaps "Mrs. K" rather than "Ms. Kirschenbaum."

With an appropriate nod to one of my favorites, William Blake, she begins a lengthy journey that takes us many places - to China, India, Tibet, and medieval Europe - and leaves us pondering the future of writing, literature, and publishing, and gasping for more. Perhaps if we are fortunate there will be more from Ms. Kirschenbaum, but certainly none precisely like this one.

This book does so many things:
1. It is, first and foremost, a unique piece of art, and is more than a book.
2. It shows a profound regard for history, but as it looks reverently beyond the past, it shows us rays of hope for literacy tomorrow.
3. It is a barely-concealed, passionate account of what it means to be a writer and reader of the first order.
4. Where are we going with information, the written word, and the way it is presented? Where is publishing going? What is publishing, exactly?

Like what eBay and Amazon have done for the masses in disintermediating the traditional middlemen, Ms. Kirschenbaum invites us to do the same in the publishing industry. In this regard, she is visionary, calling us not to be sheep who buy what the NY Times Bestsellers List tells us to purchase, but rather that which appeals most to our innermost sensibilities, toward that which is crafted for us. Looking at the state of online retail, I could see the same flattening of hierarchies happen to publishing one day. In other words, in the same way that retail pricing and other intangibles have become democratized to anyone with a computer, the truly creative and excellent works that have the potential to become a true classic (i.e. able to withstand the test of time) will naturally work their way to the top, and will not be tethered to the expectations of an overworked editor who knows he has to pimp one million copies to a populace that supposedly doesn't read. The publishing industry needs a renaissance of a different kind than online retail, however. Publishers and self-publishers need to create a renaissance in which beauty is not commoditized, as it is so often today, but respected and cherished as ends in themselves. In this sense, I think we can expect to see more works like Ms. Kirschenbaum's and fewer and fewer Tom Clancy novels that really aren't written by Tom Clancy. And that may just be the beginning of a true Renaissance in literature.

I run a small business and hardly have time to read books these days, which happens to be one of my great passions in life. Because I see lots of books every day as part of my work, I come across lots of interesting books, but none, and I mean none like this one. It is very difficult to rip me from my work, but this book managed to do so with the greatest of ease, and even write this review as soon as I had spent a gloriously rainy afternoon pouring over its pages, cup of hot tea in hand.

The author's personal commentary reminds me of long conversations I once had with my favorite English teachers from High School, and the wonderful times we had together discussing literature, history, and personal matters during lunch and after school.

Criticism:

There is a slight overuse of font and color changes by the author to emphasize her point; this makes the point almost overstated. Yet, this is precisely the author's goal - the written word is, or perhaps should be, closer to a work of art than a corporate-approved mass-marketed piece of trash. She has self-published this work, and it is thoroughly hers. On this account, either you agree or disagree with the author's approach - but at least she has license, wherewithal, and courage to try her approach with bold aplomb. Other than stunning visuals, the sheer unconventionality of her work is perhaps her greatest strength and, perhaps also her greatest weakness. It fluctuates between unique brilliance and a slightly detectable immaturity in style from a young author. This, however, renders a very refreshing tone bereft of corporate editing and "reader's focus groups".

One might say that this work is "loopy", as it paints such broad strokes, but the author's broad vision requires such a style.

The writer engages in a bit of excessive self-promotion on the cover jacket. I find this unnecessary, for the book sells itself. It is a sad commentary on today's ad-saturated world that such a talented author should feel compelled to sell such a fascinating work in such a way.

The question in my mind, is not so much whether this particular book will trigger the Renaissance the author hopes for, but when this Renaissance will occur. Upon reading this book, I think it will happen, and it is up to independent-minded individuals, like the creative and hard-working Ms. Kirschenbaum, to trigger one.

Thank you, Valerie - this is one for the ages.

This is one of my longest reviews so bear with me since this is a rare and wonderful book on par with some of the masterpieces of centuries past when one considers the art work involved.

Being a rabid bibliophile I am always overjoyed when I come across a book that makes me pause and have one of those light bulb moments. Case in point is a quote I read on page 107 which states 'We increased knowledge after Gutenberg, but we also lost. sorrowfully, our ability to see' (emphasis on the word see). Lest you not know, Gutenberg was the one given credit for mass literature becoming available because of the printing press idea. And as this book demonstrates, prior to that time when books were produced individually and with great care, which included beautiful illustrations, and even gold leaf lettering beginning on most new chapter pages.

This made the work in my opinion, come alive and made the literature important and worthy of ones money and time. Alas, it is true that only those who had the money or the exposure to education where such literature was available read per se. So when Gutenberg came along so did the desire to learn to read and own books. I applaud Gutenberg.

What this book does is educate bibliophiles like myself on the evolution of fonts and literature in general. Starting with the dedication which states: To Zuzana Licko One of the great typographers of our age.
Never heard of her/him and admit the word typographer is one of those words that give book lovers like me erotic fits. So I did a web search and discovered that a person (as a compositor, printer, or designer) who specializes in the design, choice, and arrangement of type matter is a typographer and that Ms. Licko is the co-founder of Emigre, together with her husband Rudy VanderLans. Licko was born in 1961 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia and emigrated to the U.S. in 1968; she graduated with a degree in graphic communications from U.C. Berkeley in 1984.
Emigre Magazine was founded in 1984, and garnered much critical acclaim when it began to incorporate Licko's digital typeface designs, created with the first generation of the Macintosh computer. This exposure of her typefaces in Emigre magazine led to the manufacture of Emigre Fonts, which Emigre now distributes as software, worldwide. She is mentioned briefly on page 77 and 170.

This is a book about words and fonts and so much more. Which is why it would actually take thousands of words carefully scripted to even give this book its worthy due as far a a review goes. It simply boggles the mind. No sooner would I be intrigued and educated briefly on something like art and calligraphy but wham I would be reading that 'In modern western writing, unlike with Chinese calligraphy 'the hand does all the work, leaving the rest of the body inactive, so that our writing is reduced in the end to a cerebral activity almost entirely cut off from its gestural foundation,' writes the scholar Pierre Francois Billeter' . Alas a new name to read up on and a Zen thought never considered. I say this because I do calligraphy, and I also grind my own Japanese brush stoke inks, and love practicing writing Hebrew and even Greek since alphabets are so artistic and intriguing to me.

Like the author who writes of starting out writing term papers on a typewriter (me on both a manual and electric) then on a computer the who evolution now allows for colour to be injected into ones final work. It is almost as if we have made a brief journey back to pre-Gutenberg time.

And on page 151 I am again reminded that colour used to play such an important role in literature as the author notes 'The illustrated books of the Chinese Buddhists were often the opposite of what Westerners consider 'normal'. The words were often printed in bright colors, whereas the illustrations were printed in black and white. The Chinese Buddhists wanted to insure that the pale ink drawings would not compete with the text for the attention of the reader'.

On page 176 I discovered that 100 years ago a man named Frederick Goudy introduced the concept of customized fonts. Now I admit I am a font junky as are other website owners I know. Fonts are art to me and they make any letter, diary, publication stand out if they arent the standard newspaper font. Anyway I discovered that Goudy had a big role in corporations developing personal fonts as part of their logos. Look at Coca Cola, Apple, Microsoft, Sears, IBM and you will see what I mean. Yet as the author asks, who was the 'artist' who designed these well known fonts? Should I assume they don't get residuals for each year the font continues to be used?

This is literally a piece of literature that every library public or private should own. It is for all ages if one loves literature. Have even been sharing it with my young grandchildren because I think it has serious historical value. My nerd family members are mesmerized and like me are drawn to the book because whenever you open it you find something new, either blatant or hidden that whets your appetite for more information. Which means google.com and the various bookstores I use are getting a great work out.

And being an artist myself I even bought some gold leaf and am in the process of gold leafing the old world letters on various chapter start pages.

This hallowed quotation from the penulitmately creative writings of Emily Dickinson succinctly describes the passionate volume GOODBYE GUTENBERG: HELLO TO A NEW GENERATION OF READERS AND WRITERS, a zealot's call to revolution in creating books of significance for the 21st Century by the enormously gifted Valerie Kirschenbaum. Armed with a background armour of teaching students in midcity Bayard Rustin High School for Humanities in Manhattan, having struggled with the youthful products of the visual generation influenced by television, video games, music videos, wildly mad animation feature films - Kirschenbaum came upon the idea that kids got bored with the written word, the blocks of black and white monotonous words that failed to generate not only their attention but also their hunger to learn.

Valerie Kirschenbaum has created a book of enormous visual beauty matched only by the scholarly investigation of her premise that Gutenberg's invention of the press may well have made books more readily available through mass production, but the advent of the mechanical press all but destroyed the magical magnificence of illuminated manuscripts that are now relegated to museums. Kirschenbaum proposes the idea of utilizing our most sophisiticated technology now widely available to everyone - the Computer with all of its abilities to extract creativity from the person at the keyboard - to make books in color, employ design, assimilate art, import images and treasures from the past, all with the endpoint of energizing students of all ages to rediscover the joy of reading.

Spend many hours with this fascinating book and find yourself not only completely absorbed in Kirschenbaum's 'novel' concept, but utterly mesmerized with the various areas of investigation she offers to support her discovery. Here, lavishly designed and richly colorful and cleverly written, are chapters addressing neuroscientific postulates about brain cell receptor sites that tie visual stimuli to emotional response, explorations of Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphics, Greek and Roman scrolls, Sanskrit, Chinese, Islamic, and Hindu writings and visualizations of the Divine, analyses of fonts and the Male Domain of book production, the philosophies of Plato, Nietzsche, Descartes, Wittgenstein et al, the paintings of van Gogh, Rubens, Raphael, Michelangelo, the writings of Emily Dickinson, William Blake, Proust, Joyce, Dickens, and numerous other discoveries such as the life and art of Christine de Pisan!

While it is obvious that Kirschenbaum has thoroughly researched the material for her book, she still manages to write in a manner so communicative, so warmly personal, yet so infectiously passionate that it is not possible to avoid falling under her spell! She is a consummate Teacher, a richly imaginative designer, and a compassionate human being. And if it sounds as though this description of GOODBYE GUTENBERG covers more territory than you can believe, then just explore this wondrous volume for yourself: there is far more here for your absorption and continued pleasure than the space of a review permits telling. Toward the end of her book (written by the way in her own designed elegant font!), she shares this: "My journey has been, I am sure, full of errors and omissions. But I hope that younger, more gifted souls will forgive them and see in my pages the seeds of a beautiful new future." "..to write in the vernacular today is to choose not only the right words, but also the right colors and the right designs. Our vernacular is visual. Soon our books will be visual, too."

From the stance of one committed to the arts, this book is a revelation. Read it for the discovery itself, for the sheer beauty of design and content, for the product of a successful dreamer. This book will be around for a long time as an aid to teachers, readers and other disciples of Valerie Kirschenbaum!

For those who know nothing about the web but would like to take their business online, this is a good book to read before hiring a professional. It will help you to determine if the person or firm knows what they're doing.

For anyone who has launched a website and is struggling to understand what's not working, this would be a good book.

All of the information is available on the web for free, but the author's done a nice job of packaging it and making it understandable for the novice. He's also addresses issues that are not tied to particular platforms (e.g. blogs), so the book won't be completely out of date as trends and technology continue to change.

If you have a few years of experience working with websites, the book may not be as helpful. Generally, though, it's always nice to read other people's take on what works and what doesn't. We are reminded of the solid basics and we always learn something new.

This book is well written and is packed with useful and practical information. It will get you well ahead of "the curve" on becoming successful online.

Well written,insightful and definitely worth the investment !
You can tell the Author has more hands-on experience than the average
Professor/Teacher who dwell on abstractions and vague concepts.
I just wish I had found this book first to save time and money...

I have gone through a host of books on the topic of web presence. This one, by far, made the most sense... It does not overburden the reader with a lot of technical mambo-jumbo; it focuses on what it truly means for the business. During the last two weeks, I have already gained more exposure; traffic increased threefold; and sales are up... Can you spell ROI?

This is an easy to read book with great information. There are lots of great tips. Anybody who reads this will get great value.

This is a really good, but theoretical, in depth book on the fairly new subject of VoIP security. It is in places deep technical - not the kind of how-to-approach-the-problem type of book, but really describing in detail how things work. The reason why I picked this book was twofold. One, it really focuses on VoIP *security* - as opposed to many books on the subject that handle security or VoIP, with only one or two chapters on VoIP + security. Two, it is in-depth and detailed.

Concerning the `in-depth' part, clearly it is. The style is dense, compact, almost academic. No pages of listings or screenshots - just a factual approach: I personally hate those 800 odd pages manuals full of listings, too large font, giving the impression the author is getting paid by the page...

The objective of the book is to give a clear insight in `how it works'. It is clear that Mr. Johnston is a protocol oriented person, and quite a few things are explained and approached from that perspective. It will clearly help you in designing and architecturing a VoIP deployment, but remains theoretical. Do not expect being able to actually configure an Asterisk or other vendor product. But do expect to have a clear view on what matters and what does not, from a technical perspective. In my view, it targets solution designers, VoIP architects, to some extent the technically oriented CSO, but not so much the engineer.

Chapters 9 and 10, Signaling and Media security are really tough reading: I had to go about 2 to 3 times through them! It's not that they are not well written, but the subject is really complex, and, given the style of the book, these chapters go in quite some detail. They are followed by two interesting chapters on PSTN Gateways and Identity handling. One thing I'm missing is a chapter on Session Border Controllers - possibly these are really too new, and the authors didn't want to venture into something so new it may change and obsolete the book too quickly.

Overall, the book is well edited, with no irritating typos - as we see in too many books today. It is compact and easy to handle. Each chapter contains plenty of references to related publications: what you'd expect from any serious college textbook.

The good:
- Dense, concise, precise, detailed, complete
- Product independent - a theoretical book
- Good, no-frills publishing with no pointless screenshots and the like

The not so good
- Some parts are really hard to follow
- Nothing on Session Border Controllers, but that seems to be the only missing point.

As a CTO of a software technology company in the middle of a VOIP project, I found this book invaluable in our research. There are very few books/guides/articles that talk about VOIP security and I believe this is huge thing to consider as you launch a VOIP network in your facilities or work with the protocols. The other book I read was not nearly as technical or complete and some issues defied standard communications standards which I believe were inaccurate.

I can see from the writing that the authors bring complementary knowledge to the table. One being a data/internet security
expert who considers voice "yet another stream of data to protect" and this agnosticism is IMO a good thing because it brings voice into the IT security realm in many enterprises. The other author is a voice and VOIP standards expert so he is able to call attention to the voice and voice protocol specific issues.

The book utilizes many easy to read real world scenarios that lighten the material and distinguish it from being just a reference book on protocols and standards. These scenarios often incorporate well laid out diagrams and pictures that really help you understand what's happening.

If you are investigating or implementing VOIP networks, I definitely recommend you get this book and read it cover to cover.

I picked up this book because I needed to know a few specific things about the security of VoIP systems, and discovered that it's not only a good source of information about VoIP security - it's a good source of information about IP network security in general. We're moving all these applications to IP/Internet, and we need to know what that means for security at the IP/Internet level, not just for voice but for all of the other applications. Putting Alan Johnston, with his expertise in SIP and VoIP, with Dave Piscitello, who is an expert in security, has produced a major win. "VoIP folks" and "security folks" will both want to read this book.

VOIP - the next big thing in network communication? Or a security disaster in progress? My money's on the latter, so I was happy to be able to read through this book. It has a lot of useful background material on security and security technology, and then ties it into VOIP and the current implementations of the VOIP suite. The authors don't exactly come out and say it but the situation for VOIP looks a bit grim - security kludged on as an afterthought largely by layering atop TLS and the non-existent non-functioning public key infrastructure.

I found the book to be interesting an informative, and will recommend it as a reference to any of my friends who are so unfortunate as to have to deal with securing VOIP.

mjr.

Now, VOIP security has been talked about for a few years; it started even before organizations started to deploy VOIP in greater numbers. Many folks like to say that "VOIP security is a disaster," but usually they don't explain how or why.

Dave Piscitello does. In his excellent book ""Understanding Voice over IP Security" he provides excellent coverage of both VOIP technology basics as well as internet security fundamentals (which are admittedly more useful to the security beginners) Then he fuses the above information into a comprehensive coverage of VOIP security issues, from protocols to call fraud.

VOIP and NAT? Security analysis of SIP protocol? VOIP and honeypots? PSTN gateway security? Public VOIP vs private VOIP? Is VOIP spam inevitable? Yes, all those and much much more are covered in the book.

On the negative side, I had to skip through some of the security basics (yes, even a castle metaphor is there ...), but I am conscious of the fact that such content is indeed useful to people with networking background. At the same time, some of the esoterica of phone networks was completely new to me and thus exciting to read.

I enjoyed the book; I liked that it is written to be useful to both security folks - who need to learn about VOIP - and network folks - who often need to acquire better security education.

Dr Anton Chuvakin, GCIA, GCIH, GCFA [...] is a recognized security expert and book author. His current role is a Director of Product Management with LogLogic, a log management and intelligence company. A frequent conference speaker, he also represents the company at various security meetings and standards organizations. He is an author of a book "Security Warrior" and a contributor to "Know Your Enemy II", "Information Security Management Handbook", "Hacker's Challenge 3" and the upcoming book on PCI. In his spare time he maintains his security portal [...] and several blogs.

Quite an interesting read. Laurel presents her experiences into the technological world in an easy to understand, stream-of-consciousness way. She details her journey into starting a company that focuses on girl-based computer games, Purple Moon's success and eventual demise due to "outside-the-box" thinking.

Utopian Entrepreneur is both intectually and visually stimulating reading. The M.I.T. Press has paired up an author with a designer, in this case Brenda Laurel and Denise Gonzales Crisp, to create what they like to call a pamphlet. This is the first in the Mediawork Pamphlet series, which will focus on differenct aspects of our society and how technology is effecting them. Two more have been published since this one in 2001.

I don't work in the tech industry but a friend of mine referred this book to me. Laurel's message is significant to anyone interested in the betterment of planet earth. In a scant 100 pages she speaks volumes to those up against the wall that divides commercialism and art.

Like Nathan, I also know Brenda well, so my endorsement has a bias--but so does everything I say. This is one of the most enjoyable *business* books I've ever read. Not because it's short. Not because it's extremely well-written. But because it's honest, it's real and it's heartfelt. Brenda's not the type to populate her pages with catchy slogans and new paradigm models. Instead, she shares what it feels like to be an entrepreneur trying to do the right thing and make money at it. Her voice is humble, her perspective is fresh and funny, and her message is well worth considering.

First off, I'll cop to knowing Brenda Laurel, but I don't feel obligated to review this book because of it. I read the manuscript many months ago and was moved by Brenda's ablity to describe her personal experiences in a way for everyone to both enjoy and learn from. It's not a long book and it will definately leave you wanting more--not because there's not enough there but because what is there is so nice to read.

I think most of us in the tech industries--especially designers--often have conflicts about what kind of work we do vs. what kind we WISH we could do. Brenda's book is optimistic, funny, touching, and enraging at times because she describes her experiences navigating these conflicting forces. What happened to Purple Moon was a travesty and anyone who envisions building a company with any social goals in addition to making money should treat this as an important piece of research.

Note -- i tried to change this to 5 stars, because 2 years later, i still draw quite a bit from this book. the system doesn't seem to want me to change it though.

At its heart, Utopian Entrepreneur is a Purple Moon post-mortem -- what can be learned from the life and death of Rockett Movado, the spunky heroine of the Purple Moon games. Born from concerns about the technological gender gap, Purple Moon sought to build a suite of games based on solid research. Why didn't more girls play games? What are the differences in how girls and boys approach digital media? How might designers create interactive digital entertainment that would appeal to girls? Purple Moon spent months on these questions, interviewing and surveying thousands of girls. Educators, game designers, media theorists, gender scholars, or anyone looking for a good cocktail party quote will find some of these facts fascinating. Girls don't mind violence as much as a lack of good stories and characters; girls are more likely to blame themselves for computer failure than boys are. Good, useful stuff.





(...)this little gem is a bargain. As the initial book in MIT's new Mediawork pamplet series - "zines for grownups", Utopian Enterpreneur offers concise prose, compact design, and short segments that make it perfect reading for between meetings or waiting at the airport. The unique layout helps break up the text and enrich the reading experience. Pulling off such a personal book is not easy, and the graphic design definitely contributes to the book's success. At times though, the interplay among images, space, and type feels superfluous failing to add nuance or underscore the meaning of the text.



Checking it at just around 100 pages, Utopian Entrepreneur is so readable and engaging, that I only wished Laurel had more space to share more of her experiences at Purple Moon and lessons learned from the past twenty years in software design. Whether it's expanding this book, starting a new company, or helping invent a new digital industry, I, for one, am eager to see what she does next.

Tried to covered a broad concept and has done it well. He is more a video expert than an IP expert but given the breadth of the concept he is trying to cover, I must say, he has done a great job. I would have given him 5 starts if he had not use the term "signal" in the IP and RTP discussions.

This is one of the most in-depth and comprehensive books I have ever seen covering IPTV, security, streaming, conferencing, compression and network transport. If you are professionally involved in video, this book serves as the perfect first stop reference that will give you a quick understanding of what the technologies are for and how they interrelate. Information is very well organized and easy to find.

Excellent book for technical professionals looking to go deeper into video. All the relevant protocols and technologies are surveyed, and enough detail is provided to give an understanding of their relevance. Highly recommended - this will point you to the areas to explore in more depth if you need to go further.

This book provides an excellent basis for anyone working in the field of video transport over IP networks. The author is a highly-respected expert in this field and speaks with authority on the subject, yet has written a volume that is very readable and useful as a reference. I can highly recommend this work as an up-to-date review of the topic.

As a video engineer for over 30 years, I am constantly amazed by what passes for reference work in the field of television, communications and computers. Most of the technical books answer a few questions at best and are very good at putting one to sleep, very quickly!

Not so with Mr. Simpson's book. "Video Over IP, a Practical Guide..."is,indeed, just that. With the convergence of entertainment communications and computers, the plethora of acronyms in this field is worse than it's ever been. Video over IP cuts through the clutter and provides concise, easy to understand answers. Mixed in are real life application descriptions, and practical examples that describe the technology clearly and in a way that can be understood by engineers and managers alike. An example is Mr. Simpson's analogy comparing MAC addresses and IP addresses, where the MAC address is similar to an automobile's VIN number and the IP address, which may vary over the life of a piece of hardware, is analogous to the registration or plate number. Brilliant! Couple this with the review and checklist update at the end of each chapter, and what we have is an excellent reference work that is both easy to read and up to date. A must have for anyone in the video, telecom or entertainment fields.

In the arguments about taxation of Internet sales, I am firm in believing that they should be taxed. For some time, I have thought that the only protection that net companies needed was from themselves. Launched without a great deal of forethought, market research or even a viable plan, many of them are now crashing. Business on the Internet is no different that any other business, and since that is the foremost point of this book, it is indeed one that could have made a significant difference if it had been published and read two years ago.
The author, a Professor of Information Systems at Carnegie Mellon, was one of the first professors at a top-ranked school to teach the business uses of the Web. The approach in this book is all business, with Return On Investment (ROI), Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) equations being used to make the points. There is not one word of hype in this entire book. If there is one thing that has been so clearly lacking in the explosion of dot-com companies, it has been this lack of management by equation. Guerrilla marketing and fancy ads will get you noticed, but only a positive balance sheet will keep you alive long enough for it to matter.
The remainder of the book covers the modeling of a business constructed on the web using two that he has created, www.datingexpert.com and www.yesnomaybe.com. Both deal with online dating/meeting services and the models of need, perceived value and potential revenue points are "classic" studies in how to plan and execute a business model based on user-generated information. One of the most valuable pointers which shows how much the author truly manages the sites are the data points about how people find the site. For example, on page 177 there is the caption, "Only 1.3 percent of my Web sites' traffic is due to users guessing the site's address." I did find myself wishing that he had shared more information as to how this data was acquired.
While the business models used on the Web are different in degree from those offline, they are not different in kind. The basic rules of business still apply and as the author repeats so many times, it is what you do offline that matters. Lose sight of the business equations and the points where you add value and your company will be another dot.com Titanic.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in creating websites with great business value. As a server-side applications developer, I've been mainly concerned with exploiting the web as a technological medium. This book opened my eyes to the web as an information medium, strategically used to improve a company's bottom line. It truly delivers on its claim -- [serving as] "a bridge from technical understanding to business savvy".

The book is extremely well-organized and has tons of practical knowledge and insight. Furthermore, all the principles are illustrated using easy to follow, real life examples. Excellent throughout -- highly recommended!

Until reading this book I thought I had a good understanding of what it took to design the underlying strategy and processes supporting commercial web sites. After reading this book I clearly saw how wrong I was.

The approach set forth in this incredible book is straightforward and focused solely on business imperatives. I suspect that the author and publisher realized that the title would attract IT professionals and consultants, which accounts for the inclusion of business 101. I almost skipped over this part and am glad I didn't. Even here what I thought I knew about business turned out to be superficial. The education you will receive in Business 101 goes well beyond the basics and I recommend that everyone read this regardless of whether you are an IT professional or have a business background. You might just discover that you've been misapplying common techniques such as NPV, IRR and ROI, or using the results in erroneous ways. In other words, the section titled "Business 101" is much, much more.

I loved the author's approach to value chain analysis, which is straightforward and based on a simple, but effective, notational language. Here, like in every other chapter, I learned techniques that will serve me well in general consulting assignments outside of web business engineering.

The web business engineering methodology itself is one of the leanest, most effective processes that I've ever encountered. I can only describe it as elegant. It's a blueprint for success when success is measured by how well a system is aligned to business strategy and goals. If you follow the method and resist the temptation to take shortcuts you will be rewarded with a system that meets all of your requirements and objectives whatever they may be - and you'll know exactly what the value of that system is to your organization.

A few observations about this book: (1) Give yourself plenty of time to read through this book and work through each example. It took me four times as long as it would for a book of approximate page count and topic complexity. If you're unwilling to make this commitment, perhaps you should pass this book up. (2) I fully agree with the author and a previous reviewer that web systems projects should be managed by business instead of IT. (3) If you're an IT professional get this book and read it from cover to cover - even if you never work on a web project you'll receive an incredible education in business factors and requirements analysis that will serve you well on *any* project. As a fellow IT professional I will assure you that this book will change your outlook.

This book is among the best I've read on any topic or subject and should be required reading for anyone who is assigned to a web project. It's also, in my opinion, one of the most important books published in the past few years.

The author provides a business-oriented (and technology-free) approach to engineering an on-line presence that is effective and should set the standard for a methodology for how to go about such projects. This is embodied in a framework that is defined by four principles (1) work is a combination of physical and informational activities, (2) informational work is accomplished by propagating content, (3) valuable and innovative content can be found in existing manual methods, and (4) an on-line strategy should be based on off-line advantages. These principles are simple, yet powerful. They are also not as easy to adhere to as they seem, which becomes apparent when you begin mapping activities in subsequent chapters.

There are so many things I like about this book, so I'll stick with the highlights. First, the differences between the way IT/IS and business units approach projects are carefully examined. Understanding these differences will make or break a web project, and as an IT professional I fully agree with the author that IT is the wrong organizational unit to lead and manage web projects. Their role should be relegated to that of support.

Second, the author leads you through the basics of value chain analysis, business factors and financial analysis. This is an excellent refresher for business professionals and is essential reading for IT professionals, especially those who claim to be business analysts. I learned a great deal from the discussion on ROI, NPV and IRR. These are not new knowledge areas for me, but learning about the fallacies and pitfalls inherent in each approach that can trap you or lead you to bad decisions was priceless.

What I learned the most from was the Quick Primer on Diagnosing Problems and Opportunities. As in the rest of the book the author uses case studies to reinforce the concepts and principles. In this case you are led through a mailing cost analysis and some of the results are surprising. For example, after all of the cost drivers are mapped out on a spreadsheet you play with some variables and discover that commonsense properties of the model do not necessarily act in commonsense ways. Doubling productivity (assuming it is possible to coax such a thing from humans) only yielded a 2.5% reduction in costs. Using cheaper labor actually cost more in the particular model. As an aside, the model was not contrived to create these counter-intuitive results - it is a plain vanilla cost model that you would commonly encounter or build. In this chapter you are introduced to a step-by-step process that shows how to effectively perform a cost analysis and find the true drivers that can be changed to reduce or avoid costs.

A caveat about this book: it can be easily read, but is merely interesting unless you take the time to carefully step through each case. If, however, you take your time and work through the problems and trace the value chains--a tedious task--you will find that this book has many chapters that are profound. That's a strong word, but in my opinion an accurate one. I've applied the approach in this book on a real-life project and can attest that it works extraordinarily well - and that's the highest compliment one can pay to an author.

Building effective business systems and web applications requires an understanding of not only technology, but also the organization and the processes in which it will be implemented.

Nick Flor, a Professor of Information Systems at Carnegie Mellon's Graduate School of Industrial Administration, argues that to create high-value business web sites requires business as well as technical knowledge. He draws a distinction between a mere web site, which he says, exchanges information and a business web site, which exchanges value - it generates significant revenues and/or drastically pares expenses.

He says three skills are required is proposed for systematically molding the Web to the specific requirements of the specific business.

1. General Business Knowledge.
2. An ability to analyze and diagnose business activities.
3. An ability to design Web treatments to address those activities.

To equip Web entrepreneurs and consultants with these requisite skills, Flor organizes his book into four sections:

1. Web Business 101 - This section covers the first business skill - the big picture. This general business primer includes a discussion of Return on Investment, Net Present Value, Payback, Internal Rate of Return, production, distribution and the effects of competition.
2. Web Business Engineering - Using the knowledge acquired in the first section, the book proposes a methodology that links technical knowledge with business specific knowledge.
3. Case Studies Putting Offline Activities Online
4. Case Studies Applying Web Business Engineering to Online Activities

Stick with the book until you reach the case studies. They add value to the first two sections.

This well-written book sheds important light on web development. By focusing on the author's definition of "value", managers and development teams will avoid aping successful online companies, building instead, systems that address what companies should be doing online based on their offline activities.

I just finished reading Web Business Success and was very impressed with the detailed, practical, hands-on knowledge the book provided. The author even tells you which web host and domain name registrar she uses! The book is full of that type of useful content. It has the best description I've ever seen of the shopping cart - gateway - merchant account process. The author starts you from the beginning, guiding you through the process of planning a web site. The book covers finding a host, promoting a site, and finally eCommerce. I've taught eBusiness courses at the MBA level, and I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to start a web-based business.

Don't read this review.

I'll tell you what I think of this book, but I'm prejudiced: I know and work with Susan Daffron, one of the co-authors. The reason I'm compelled to offer a review of Web Business Success anyway is that I've watched it in the making, but have now read it in print, and it's a classic--a classic set of instructions for setting up your business on the Internet. It's told in a clear way that techies will appreciate for scope, and non-techies for clarity and common sense. And it covers the key steps to getting it right from designing your website to cultivating your market and putting together the whole e-commerce component.

Web Business Success is full of good advice and tips from a technical and content team (Daffron and Byrd) with many years of experience and case studies under their belt. Take page 35 for instance, after discussing everything from the Zen of HTML to selecting a Web designer, it goes on to advise on the practical considerations of putting your business on the Web.

But again, this is not a level playing field. I know Susan and James services better than most newcomers to their work, and will have already been favorably impressed with the professionalism, results, and style.

I've watched their new book come into being during months of the authors' diligent efforts gleaned from years of their toil and focus. So there, I'm biased. Now, disregard my caveats and buy this book. You'll learn more than one or two things about launching your business on the Web and holding your own--and better--against the challenges of web e-commerce and the competition.

I loved this book. I rank it right up there with another book on the subject I like very much: The Web-Savvy Writer (ISBN: 0977830403). What I liked so much about this book is how it tells the authors' story of how they themselves moved their business online. One of the authors is a writer and the other is an IT professional. They earn their livelihood online for the most part and they have shared how they made the move to self-employment using their Internet connection and Web hosting.

The book cuts through most of the hype most authors write about concerning Web sites. And from page one on the authors build rapport with the reader and you learn to trust just about every word they say. Since I use Frontpage to build Web pages, and the authors advise against using it, I don't buy into all their advice. But I can see where they are coming from, even though I don't agree with their point of view. The book has the following six chapters and a glossary:

1. Introduction
2. Creating Your First Site
3. Getting Your Site Online
4. Promoting Your Site
5. Creating an eCommerce Site
6. Business Operations and Practices

I would have liked the book better if it had covered as much on graphics programs as it did on WYSIWYG Web page programs. When I first started designing and building Web sites back in 1998 I found Frontpage to be very easy to use in building sites. The hardest part learning that program was figuring out how to use it so I didn't need Frontpage Extensions on the Web servers I used. That wasn't so difficult. However, I was not very skilled at using graphics software: Image Composer, Photopaint, Paintshop, and finally Photoshop. Graphic files are VERY important when trying to make your Web site attractive to surfers. And I think it would have been nice if the authors had said just a little bit more about the subject than they did.

I also enjoyed reading that the authors self publish this book using Print on Demand (POD) technology. Somewhat recently I read a book that explains how to do that economically. If you are interested, then take a look at Aiming at Amazon (ISBN: 093849743X). All in all, this is a great book for any entrepreneur to read and devour. 5 stars!

I've read a lot of books about doing business online, and I've never read a better one than this -- it's well-written and packed with practical advice. I especially appreciated that it had no geek-speak, it's written in clear English.

Whether you are only now considering an Internet business or you launched one years ago, this is a handy reference of all the critical information you need. It cuts through the hype and gives you the essentials about creating a site, promoting it, and making sure you've got the proper strategy.

I was glad to see that the authors advocate a highly ethical approach to online ventures -- I agree with them that's the key to success if you're in this for the long haul.

No matter what the nature of your business, you'll do well to pick up a copy of "Web Business Success." You'll find plenty of information that you can use to understand and improve your online business.

I recently revised my Web site with a new design, content and ecommerce features. Web Business Success clarified many options I wasn't aware of and helped guide me through the maze so I could make the right choices for this stage of my ecommerce business. I especially appreciated the information on hosting, search engine optimization, and ecommerce options.

The book is very user friendly, clear and has a minimum of technical jargon. My Web site is better, was created in less time and with less expense due to the very practical support that Web Business Success provided. I recommend it to anyone who needs a Web site that is designed to support financial transactions. It is an excellent guide both for hiring others or dipping into the world of do-it-yourself Web design.

As a very amateur web builder, I find this to be an excellent reference tool. Concise, to the point explanations are provided and I found the answer to my problem right away. Cuts to the chase without all the fluff.

I read this book in about three days. It is so clear and concise and packed with simple yet extensible examples to do just about anything a designer would want to do on a web page. It is also full of practical, pragmatic pointers that really get you to think about the goal of your site and how to acheive that goal. I was thoroughly impressed with this book - worth the money, a great reference, and a nice-paced read. You want to design web sites? No experience? Pick up this book. You been dabbling and want to improve? Pick up this book. Do you finally want to see what all the to do is with CSS? Want to stop using html the wrong way? You want to make your sites more accessible for the impaired and do it the right way? Pick up this book.

I've been doing HTML work for almost 10 years now. I currently own or manage four different web sites. Because of always changing standards regarding HTML and more recently CSS, trying to keep a web site compliant with these standards is not an easy thing. One of the more problematic issues is how certain functions are employed that seem to work on every browser out there, but suddenly a standards verification says that what is being used doesn't comply with official standards. Grrr...

Another problem is trying to get information that the average Joe can understand. More often than not, web sites that are dedicated to providing HTML and CSS information are very poorly done because they look like someone with no taste or style just threw the page together. (I'm sure that we've all seen the pathetic web sites with huge, dark letters on a black background, centered throughout the page, with needless graphics scattered about.) Other sites regarding HTML and CSS are far too technical and give a lot of details but no practical instructions, examples, or usage. The only thing to do at that point is to find a web site that does what you want to do and try to figure out what was done through that page's source code. Sometimes that alone is enough to make you want to give up.

Web Design Garage is one of the few books about HTML and CSS that actually is written for the starting web author who doesn't know where to start as well as the intermediate author who is looking to fine tune his (or, of course, her) web design skill and perhaps clean up the site a bit.

This book is divided into eighty-six separate chapters with each chapter covering a very specific topic, such as image maps, text elements, paths, forms, and so forth. This is very beneficial because you know that the whole topic deals with one subject, rather than have one larger chapter that deals with a number of topics for which you have to go searching. What's also very nice about the chapter design is that for appropriate topics the HTML chapter is followed by the equivalent chapter to do the same thing through CSS. This is a great way of letting the reader compare the two formats back-to-back for the specific goal that the reader wants to reach. This certainly beats the more commonly used method of having a larger topic dealing with a lot of HTML topics followed by another large chapter of the same number of topics in CSS, forcing to you to hunting through the chapters for comparisons or differences.

This book also contains hundreds of images, screen shots, and code examples. In a visually oriented world like the Web, being able to see how each bit of code works as well as a graphical example of the theories behind that bit of code make it easier to understand exactly what that chapter is attempting to accomplish.

The book also covers some functions that might not appeal to the beginner but would likely be considered to be of value for intermediate HTML/CSS designers. Such topics include blogs, forms, form validation, some Javascript, and even how to validate so that the code is up to W3C standards.

What's really great about this book is not that it's written in layman's terms. It's not that this book keeps the specific topics relegated to their own, individual chapters. It's not that this book contains lots of information that even experienced HTML coders might find of value. What's great about this book is that is does all of this for a list price of US$29.99, so you know that it will be available for less than that in most bookstores. This is not a large book (roughly 530 pages) but the information that it gives for the price make is a great value.

I've been doing web pages for many years and have gotten many rave reviews on their designs, non-bloated implementations, and compatibility across almost all browsers. And even I found things in this book that I've been thinking of implementing but thought that they'd be too difficult to implement. Web Design Garage has proved me to be wrong. And if I can get value out of this book, I know that just about all beginner and intermediate HTML/CSS coders will be able to get value out of it as well.

If you're looking to impress people with fancy Flash animations or other such multimedia overload, this isn't the book for you. But if you're thinking of starting your own web page or you already have a basic web page and would like to spice it up, buy this book.

marc campbell shows one the things everyone know in their subconscience about a well designed site, but does realize when designing a site.

"Web Design Garage" is a remarkably clear-headed, concisely-written and feature-rich book about contemporary web design topics. It is part of a "Garage" series of hip-looking, style-laden books published by Prentice Hall (Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference -PH PTR) and is targeted at the "garage" level designer - small business professionals, hobbyists, and technophiles. It assumes some modest familiarity of HTML and working with Javascripts.

This is not a primer, tutorial, or concept-bound book. It is meant to provide practical guidance and solutions to the most common web design issues dealt with by web designers. Author, Marc Campbell, offers a set of 86 topics about web design problems and solutions. The format for nearly all of the 86 topics is to highlight a design issue and offer solutions using pictures, examples, and code snippets. Although a good and quick read from beginning to end, the book can be read piecemeal for information and guidance on a specific issue. One can pick and chose topics depending on interest or need.

There are no traditional chapters, but only a set of design topics of relatively short length organized into 8 general categories. Those categories include design and usability topics, layout, images, text, links, forms, and two others, - one of miscellaneous items and the last being an explanation of basic web design material. There is also an index and a short glossary of HTML, CSS, web, and graphics-related terms.

The fundamental theme of the book is that design and usability are, or should be, the same thing. Usability is paramount, of course, but the author's approach to web design emphasizes creating a "sense of place" so that good design unites pages so that they look like they belong together.

This is not an earth-shattering idea, but like most of all of the design treatments, the goal is to design pages which make it easy for visitors to use the site. Many good design virtues are virtually invisible to the casual user. There is a blend of design and usability. It's only when a design element doesn't work well that it comes to the attention of the user, and that occurrence is meant to be avoided. The author shows by example how design and usability are intertwined.

There are a handful of themes which guide the book. Admirably, the author emphasizes for every design element, a concern for accessibility. Many of the design guides refer to accessibility by screen-readers and non-graphic browsers. A second major concern is for compliance with contemporary web design standards as promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium. Consequently, there is much emphasis on the separation of page structure from content where HTML is used for structure and CSS is used for content. A contrast of HTML and CSS formatting is highlighted in many of the chapters.

There is a large handful of sections which express HTML and CSS formatting differences on page layout, text and image positioning, and other web design elements. There is clear discussion on how to work with Javascripts and stylesheets. The emphasis is on "forward-looking" coding, i.e., clean, standards compliant, and accessibility conscious. Campbell offers an experienced designer's insights on choices to be made in design components. There is much value for both inexperienced and seasoned designers.

Each topic is richly expressed with clear and straightforward text, illustrations, screenshots, and sidebars on a variety of related matters. Throughout there are sidebars titled "FAQS" and "Geekspeak" explaining concepts or terminology for the less-knowledgable reader. Then there are those called "Tips" which usually offer an insight to practical problems, especially dealing with browser compatibility issues. There are many useful tables and charts indexing specific tag attributes, with examples. In addition and most useful are the "Toolkits" which are sample code snippets. It would have been nice to have the code snippets available for downloading from the publisher's web site (www.phptr.com/garageseries).

This is a dense volume containing all sorts of information useful for the "garage" web designer. For some reason, the depth and weight of the content is reflected in the book itself, which is remarkably heavy, weighing in at a well-produced 29 ounces.

There are many books available on basic web design, but this one is unusually clear and well-expressed. This is the type of book one keeps handy in the bookshelf next to the computer to access for quick solutions to everyday web design problems.

This is an excellent book on web security.

It is dated, but has a ton of good info nonetheless.

I've read this book twice now. Once when I first bought it and again a couple weeks ago. My reaction after the second reading was an intense desire to unplug every electronic device in my house - even the microwave - and smash them with a very large hammer.

Why, you ask? Because there is no way, I repeat, NO WAY to truly, totally and completely protect yourself from invasions to your privacy in the modern world. It almost makes me sympathize with those radical survivalist-types.

Mr. Stein clearly and concisely lays out the hazards of surfing the web, sending and receiving e-mail, and doing a number of other things on the Internet. He gives a lot of the history and background of various technologies (JavaScript, Cookies, etc.), explaining how things got the way they are now, and where they are going in the future. He further gives practical suggestions that anyone can implement to practice "safe surf".

Web Security contains content for systems administrators, web designers and lay-people alike. Better yet, these sections are cleanly separated making it easy for technical and non-technical folks to easily get to information that most interests them. Best of all, the entire book is written in English - not techno-babble - so you don't have to have a degree from MIT to understand it.

If you have been looking for a good introduction to security issues on the Internet, this book is a must-have!

Explains the basics of Web Security very well. Discusses public keys, SSL, certificates and related issues in plain English; provides meaningful figures/diagrams. Nice book to own and have handy on your bookshelf.

I am zhao ke, and I am studing at the Electric Engineering department of hunan Universtiy of China.I like this site, and I often come to this site to find any good book about computer network.Every time, I find a good book I want to get.I am very happy at this site. I hope every student come to this site to find book they want!

Before reading the book always thought that what are the ways to secure the confidential info on your web site? This book will gives you a answers to all the question. After reading the book now understands how and why? Every Project Lead plus Project Manager involved in anykind of Web development needs to have this book in their shelves.