Internet Books

OK. What more do you need to know? This book is written by three gentlemen who live, eat and breathe computer incident response & forensics. The fact that they present the information in a well written and easy to follow format is just a bonus! If you're one of those "I wanna do it" types like me, you'll read through the material and then tackle the provided data to see if you can solve the crime. A great starting point for future incident responders and folks who want to know more about computer forensics.

Thanks a lot, we are very happy to have this book in our library!

I took this book because it was told to me by my professor to purchase it.
But after reading its content I feel its really worth buying this book.

As an author and instructor, I tend to be pretty picky about the books I choose to read and use in my classes. The authors present the material in a good logical progression. I especially like that it also provides sample evidence on the DVD. Most of the computer forensic books that currently exist contain mostly theory. This is the first good hands-on text that I have seen.

The authors have captured a good cross section of scenarios and then guide you through each case in-depth, offering practical solutions when faced with obstacles. The content provides methodologies, techniques, and tools that anyone can use. In addition it covers a variety of media such as USB memory and Palm devices.

This is a book that I will definitely keep. It is one of the best forensic investigations books currently on the market and would be a great asset to anyone wishing to enhance their skills.

This book is written in such a style that is easy to understand, yet technical and detailed enough to maintain your interest and attention all the way through.

The book presents several ways of accomplishing the same tasks in a non-biased, non-vendor-specific way. It explores the use of free, open-source tools as well as commercial offerings, and drills down into forensic analysis of both Windows and Unix/Linux Operating Systems.

The included CD contains actual forensic data and a few tools, which is both interesting and exciting to use while following along with the lessons in the book.

After receiving this book and opening it to the first page, I was almost unable to set it down until I finished it. I received it on a Friday afternoon and I had completed reading it by the end of the weekend. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Computer or Network Security.

Although a bit dated, containing strips related to the Y2K craze here and there, this little book is still otherwise as funny and timely as any commentary on the computer industry could be. The X-Men and Borg references are absolutely hysterical. If you work in a tech job, you should be reading User Friendly.

It's a good book, but I think previous books have been funnier.

"Am thinkink. Erwin, to fight such big powerful company as AOL, am to be fightink fire with fire. Da?"
"Umm...what did you have in mind?"
"Am to becomink half computer, half human, like Borg. Then to become super administrator of all Borg functions."
"That means...you'll become..."
"Da. I will becomink root of all evil."
"Don't do it, Pitr! Don't go to the bad place!"
- Pitr the techie and Erwin the AI, in conversation

After opening with a few post-Y2K-bust strips, the Columbia Internet crew having stockpiled lots of soda and pork rinds for the occasion, the book settles into its more usual long-running plot threads.

Stef's been given the title "Manager: S&M." ("It stands for SALES AND MARKETING you depraved monkeys.") In his efforts to sell a line of products the same way that the Pokemon empire does their stuff, he persuades Pitr to make collectible Unix text editors. Pitr, in fact, goes through several evil little anti-Unix projects in the book to keep his hand in as a budding Evil Genius.

Other developments in the continuing story:
- AJ struggles to figure out how to court Miranda properly (badly timed in light of the "I love you" virus).
- Stef (who as a Windows user sees Unix holy wars as an added bonus of his job) makes the mistake of interfering in Miranda's life, which leads to a lot of Matrix crossover references.
- Mike becomes a Sims addict. ("Hey! Are you *allowed* to have four wives?")
- Greg's tech support calls turn into a game-help hotline.
- Pitr has an evil twin brother in Sales who affects the same fake accent.
- Introducing Sid Dabster, the aging ex-HP tech who becomes something of a blood enemy of Pitr's.

And, of course, the fantasy elements, such as:
- Parallels between Steve Case of AOL and Anakin Skywalker.
- Greg's Linux daemons (think "shoulder angel" here).

You have to be a computer geek to understand the humor. If you are, and especially if you have a unix/linux background and/or have worked with internet or other computer support you will find this one of the most hysterical comics around.

If you don't find at least some of the strips very funny, you should have your geek status removed. :)

This is the XSLT book I look for when I have an XSLT question. While the title makes it sound like a beginner's book (and it certainly can fill that role), I find it very useful as an advanced user's reference as well.

Some PROs and CONs...

Pros:
Topic flows very well. Author was able to explain each topic without asking reader to refer to upcoming forward chapters. Best part of this book are the examples. They are relevant and short and sweet enough to understand. Best of all, there are lots of examples. The author doesn't just slap them on the page and tell you to figure it out yourself. The author walks the reader thru them.

Cons:
Some areas reads like a technical manual.. causing me to reread sentences over and again. But that said, the book still comes across as tutorial friendly (You figure that out.).

Comparisons:
I rate the book 5 stars. I own Beginnning XSLT 2.0 by Tennison, XSLT 2.0 by Kay, and Mastering XSLT by White. My opinion is that XSLT in 21 days is the best book to get you to learn it the quickest because of the author's superb examples.

The book is easy to understand. There are plenty of examples and the exercise help reinforce what you learnt. The two negatives are: it's not XSLT 2.0 and the printing and binding of the book is poor. It is still a good way to learn XSLT. It would be great to have a study group guide.

This book works. It does, however, assume that you have a meaningful level of computer proficiency. This is probably a safe assumption for anyone intending to go spelunking in XML files and performing transformations on same.

To complete the book's lessons, you'll need to download and install one of the free XSLT parsing engines listed in the book. Alternatively, I used the jEdit free text browser and its associated XSLT plugin to run the examples.

I don't believe in assigning five stars, or I would have for this book.

If you know absolutely nothing about XSLT, this is the book for you. Very straightforward. I got through the first week (7 chapters) in about a day. You could easily read and understand most of the content in this book in less than a few days. Great for anyone wanting to pick up the language quickly. For advanced users, this is probably not your book.

This book is an excellent application of formal methodologies for e-business cases. The examples are useful according to the explanations. I was expecting more emphasis on cost of IT resources or methods in order to calculate. But, the authors guide the book in the resource and performance chapters showing an approach on how to measure from regular sites not from new e-business projects which begin from nothing, without any data from logs or similar metrics. However, the estrict compliance with the methodology presented and the explanation about security provided me with a good reason to have it.

I think it is the only book that deals with the e-business implementation methodocally and lays down a formal procedure. It is very well written and contains appropriate examples. It is recommendable not only for designers but also for managers.

There's not much else I can add to the string of reviews before mine, which ALL give full marks. The words in this review's title are the only that might add value.

This is one of those rare works which does not care to have one eye for the wannabe market. Suitable for both technicians & those folk needing to see the "big picture" (e.g. Managers)

This is one of a series of books about performance and capacity metrics by the authors. Each of their books covers a specific environment (client/server, mainframes, web services), and each explains the theory, quantitative methods and practical approaches using common tools like Microsoft Excel.

This book's focus is on performance and capacity of applications in the e-commerce infrastructure, and like the other books by the authors, it covers every facet while explaining the what's and why's. More importantly, this book will not overwhelm readers who are rusty in math because the authors weave in refresher material as they go along.

What makes this book valuable is the blend of business and technical topics, particularly in Part I where business models are thoroughly discussed. I personally believe that this material is as important as the more technically focused material in subsequent chapters because it wakes up the technical reader as to why their job of developing scalable solutions is important by linking the technical aspects to business imperatives.

Parts II (Evaluating E-Business Infrastructure and Services) and III (Capacity Planning for E-Business) are the heart of the technical matter, and the chapters systematically dissect each aspect of an e-commerce infrastructure from the application layer point of view. This is where quantitative methods are introduced and where the value of the spreadsheets on the CD ROM increase. Note that there are more up-to-date versions of these spreadsheets on the book's associated website, as well as errata for the book.

Practical considerations that blend the business and technical perspectives are presented in Part IV (Models of Specific E-Business Segments). This chapter consists of case studies that tie together all of the preceding material using real world examples.

Because this book is more focused on performance and capacity at the application and business model layer, you should read the authors' newest book, "Capacity Planning for Web Services: Metrics, Models, and Methods". That book covers the lower level details of the infrastructure
to round out the picture of an end-to-end view of performance and capacity management.

A Excellent Book witht a lot of examples and mathematical models that will help to found the correct way to implant a dot com business, Every IT must read it

Before you purchase this book, you must know that it was written so long ago that the english used is, well... old school for lack of a better cliche.

With that being said, this is the book that started marketing. Before this book and Claude Hopkins, there was no discipline called marketing. So you have to give the man the respect he deserves. In his day, Claude Hopkins revolutionized the world with his ideas on marketing. In particular, he created the science of marketing by applying the scientific principle to advertising. The very definition of marketing which is the ability to quantify and measure your advertising efforts (if you aren't measuring how well your ads are doing then you are not doing marketing at all but instead PR) came from this man, in this book.

If Claude Hopkins was alive today, he would absolutely dominate Internet marketing.

Yes, the concepts are way dated. Yes, the english used is hard to understand and follow at certain points. No, this book will not cause your sales to triple by giving you an easy, step by step roadmap to follow. But does that mean it isn't worth reading? I think not. Anyone who is on a quest to become a master marketer must buy this book. As the cliche goes, if you don't know where you've been, then how do you know where you are going?

From the author of Internet Marketing-Profits That Lie Hidden In Your Website: How To Triple Your Web Sales In 25 Days

This book is great! I read it cover to cover and found many good techniques and strategy's that i applied to PPC marketing.

this book is a quick read and stays clear and concise in all its arguments. the book is almost 100 years old, but the points made are applicable to everything today. it was written when mass mail marketing was first being developed, and when statistics were first being integrated into marketing. the lessons shared could have saved many companies in the first internet boom, and despite the change in medium, are still extremely applicable to every type of marketing today.

there are hysterical examples as well (egg incubators!), that, although outdated in content, are still prime examples for marketing today's products and services.

This book change our perspective about our business strategies. If you are serious about making profits in your business you need to read this book.

There is an old saying that goes, "there is nothing new but what has been forgotten." Advertising is about 100 years old, but the science and art behind what appears to buying psychology, really hasn't changed that much. If you study this work of Claude C. Hopkins, you will understand that he pioneered methods that are still used today. David Ogilvy was another one of these pioneers, and he said, "no one should be in advertising that has not read Scientific Advertising at least seven times." If you study any of the notable marketing gurus today (e.g. - Dan Kennedy), they are just positioning what Claude has said in a contemporary format. And even marketing for the Internet - if you look beyond the HTML bells and whistles - is still utilizing the basic psychology of sales letter generation, and copywriting, that Claude pioneered.
www.randykempcopywriting.com

Not too many months ago, I was evaluating a number of Java frameworks for a project I was starting. One of those frameworks was JBoss Seam. Seam brings together J2EE technologies such as Enterprise Java Beans 3.0, Java Server Faces, POJOs, and a wealth of rich web components.

Many of us are familiar with the "In Action" series of books from Manning. They are quite simply some of the most highly respected technology books available. I purchased this book knowing the kind of quality I could expect, and I wasn't let down. The presentation and quality of the material was as I expected. Some of the key areas of focus were those that are most important in Seam; the Seam life cycle, inversion of control, state management, persistence, and transactions. Obviously many of these topics exist outside of Seam but what the Seam framework does is provide added features for these key items. The book focuses heavily on each and really drills into the improvements made.

I've done a lot of scrounging around the web for tutorials, guides, and articles about Seam. This book is far and away the best resource I've found. Everything else has been a mere reference. If you are like me, and want a real resource on the topic, you'll be happy with this purchase.

Based on perusal of sample chapters, I will likely buy this book, and will undoubtedly learn a lot from the author's expertise.

However, I would like it lot better, had the author omitted the silly and distracting metaphors of Seam as the classic car with the J2EE engine, or Seam as the application-stack-dinner-party-planning-sous-cheff. Enough already with the goofy florid stylings! Such is just distracting fluff. I hope the author didn't fall into this style throughout the text.

If you're looking to learn Seam, it doesn't get any better than this book. Even if you already know Seam it works very well as a reference. Dan has gone to extreme lengths to make this the best Seam book (excluding the Seam Reference docs) out there (he also talks about some of the Seam 2.1 features).

All of the source code is available as well [...] There are also some bonus chapters on his site at Manning as well [...]. You can also see the links that he has compiled also [...]

As I said, Dan has gone to great lengths to make this the best it can be. You'll find his code easy to follow, the examples concise, and his humor refreshing. Again, very excellent read and a necessary book to own if you are doing Seam work.

That book is fundamental for a better understanding of Seam.
I read a lot of books about Seam, but in my opinion this is the best, because it explains more deeply the mechanisms of Seam.
I really enjoyed reading it and testing the example application (open18) the book develops in its pages.
The application Open18 integrates different technologies and it's a great example to see how Seam helps you doing it.

I'm rating this as 4 stars because not everything works "out of the box". I wouldn't care but I want to help any readers by directing you towards the author forums that exist on Manning's sandbox site. There is vital information there, especially if you get errors related to "wrong column type". Other than that, (and because of that) I'm on Chapter 2 and so far the book is great-- or maybe just Seam is great and blessed is the bearer of good news, etc.

I was lucky enough to have met the author and her ultra-cool sons at a holiday party before I purchased her book. Trust me, she's as fascinating and charming in person as she is in her prose. The only complaint I have of the book is that it's too damned hard to put down. The book will make you realize that EVERYONE has a story to tell, and I doubt that anyone can tell it as well as Rene tells it! Excellent.

Despite the "one, two three strikes" approach to internet dating, this funny, entertaining book about the author's experiences with finding, (or not finding), love online reveals her sweet side, and is a serious and insightful look into both the advantages and dangers of the internet blind date. She is unfailingly kind to even the most absurd beau, even when moving on. It is a must read for everyone with a sense of humor and a love of adventure.

This book made me laugh out loud! I had so much fun reading it. I found myself rooting for Renee with each and every date. Each date is a new chapter so you can grab a quick read if you want, but I found it hard to put down. Men who are considering online dating might want to use some of her (not so) subtle hints :)

I've been Internet dating for a few years and still haven't found my 'best friend.'But I know he's out there and that is what keeps us all going. Some of her dates remind me of mine! Same story--different town! Now, everyone can get a first hand glimpse as to some of the characters that are out there. She has hit the nail on the head with her candid, straight-forward sense of humor and the stuggles with Internet dating. Everyone has a story--she put it in a book! This is a fast, fun read. I recommend this book to everyone who loves to laugh! Maggie

I loved this quick read! Some of Rene's dating experiences are laugh out loud funny, while others are more serious. The mix of both is perfect. My sister did the internet dating thing after being married for 25 years, then divorced. She found the man of her dreams on an internet dating site! I'm married with two teenage daughters and I want them to read this book. It'll show them what they can expect from dating and how to be strong and confident enough to know who is good for them and who can go jump in a lake!!! I highly recommend this book!

This is a great book. I rarely give a book 5 stars, but this one has earned it.

The author's technical and standards body background is a tremendous help in helping the reader sort out the substance from the hype. This book covers XML and cryptography basics, DTDs, XML Schema, XML digital signatures and encryption, and SOAP.

I like the author's comparisons of XML with other encoding schemes, particularly ASN.1 DER which is prevalent in the security standards world.

Also helpful are the author's "soapbox" comments, which handily dispel the notion that you should accept all parts of a standard as the absolute truth and the final word. For example, "X.500 identities are baroque hierarchical names in which each level of the hierarchy consists of an arbitrary, unordered set of attribute-value pairs. They are just one of the complexities and false assumptions (such as the assumption that everyone would allow themselves to be listed in one global public directory, including companies listing all their employees) that doomed the X.500 Directory as originally conceived". I love it!

You'd be hard pressed to go wrong with this book.

In researching business requirements for enterprise web services, it soon became obvious that XML security would be an important issue.

I happened across this book, with a seemingly simple format and am impressed with the information it provides, the progression of information, and how well I was able to understand and comprehend the concepts detailed.

After reading serveral books on XML in general, I would recommend this book to anyone just wanting to learn XML concepts.

I wish more technical books gave me the same feeling of usefulness that this one gave me.

As they say in the movie industry... "An enthusiastic thumbs up"

Collaboratively written by Donald Eastlake (Co-chair of the joint IETF/W3C XML Digital Signature working group) and freelance technical writer Kitty Niles, Secure XML: The New Syntax for Signatures and Encryption is a solid, accessible, step-by-step guide to the processes for encrypting and ensuring security of XML applications. Individual chapters competently address canonicalization and authentication, encryption, cryptographic and non-cryptographic algorithms, and much, much more. Highly recommended for advanced XML users, Secure XML is a comprehensive, technically proficient, and detailed instructional resource and reference filled from cover to cover with extensive discussion and practical examples.

When you read the XML specification, you will notice that it contains no notion of security. Critical security functionalities such as encryption, digital signatures, and authentication are simply not part of the XML standard. XML is similar to many other protocols, languages, and operating systems in that it was originally developed without any thought to security and privacy. It is only after serious security vulnerabilities are discovered and publicized that they are patched. But this find, patch, fix mentality of information security is dangerous in that security problems can exist for months or years before they are found.

Similarly within XML, much of the security functionality has been added post- facto, namely in Canonical XML, XML Signature, and XML Encryption Syntax and Processing. By adding security to the core feature set of XML, the W3C has ensured that,
to a degree, the find, patch, fix method won't be the manner in which XML security is developed. A good reference book can help you navigate this XML security landscape.

Topics such as authentication, encryption, XML signatures, algorithms, and keying are discussed. For the most part, the bulk of XML security is covered.

Donald Eastlake, the lead author of Secure XML: The New Syntax for Signatures and Encryption, is the co-chairman of the joint IETF/W3C XML Digital Signature working group, a member of the W3C Encryption and W3C XML Key Management System working groups, and co-author of the XML Digital Signature, XML Encryption, and XML Exclusive Canonicalization standards. It is clear that Eastlake lives and breathes XML. As Eastlake is a writer of numerous W3C XML standards, and standards are often written in a terse and abstract manner; his book has a slightly stiffer writing style than XML Security. If you can get over this style, you can appreciate the comprehensive and uthoritative look at XML the book provides from one of the key architects of the syntax.

Secure XML covers and details every XML security feature. Also, it spends a lot of time giving examples of syntax and language use. This is especially so in chapter 9, XML Canonicalization - The Key to Robustness. Canonicalization is the extraction of the standard form of some data and the discarding of insignificant aspects of the data's surface representations. The book notes that getting the right canonicalization is one of the most important, yet difficult aspects of digital authentication within XML. Chapter 10 goes into great detail about XML signatures and authentication. The chapter gives numerous code examples of various contexts, schemas, and elements that readers can use on their own XML servers. Chapter 10 also has numerous notes and historical information about XML security with information that can't be found elsewhere.

Suppose you have XML data that you want to regularly
send to Bob, across the Internet. But it is of a
confidential nature, so you don't want to send it as
plaintext. Well, you can try using low level
encryptions, like SSL or TLS. But these don't give any
authentication, ie. Bob can't tell that you actually
sent them. Also, once Bob gets the messages, they are
all in plaintext, so he can't easily protect these
against others, if he is on a multiuser computer.

One answer is to incorporate encryption into XML, by
defining cryptographic standards that sit atop XML,
and generate XML documents with encrypted data. These
let you and Bob use powerful XML-based routines like
XPath, XLink and XPointer. Plus, you can now do things
like append your digital signature to your plaintext
file, encrypt the combination with Bob's public key,
and get a resultant XML document that you can send
Bob. Upon receipt, he can decrypt it and verify that
you are the author, all the while dealing with XML
documents.

This book explains the emerging XML standards that
make this possible. They discuss at a high level the
various cryptographic algorithms, like AES [Advanced
Encryption Standard], Diffie-Hellman and MD5. Little
mathematics is needed, as they leave the mechanics of
the algorithms to other books. Instead, they describe
the XML infrastructure that uses these.

The book has a necessarily comprehensive description
of canonicalisation; which refers to the rewriting of
an XML document in a standard form, prior to
encryption. Otherwise two semantically identical
documents would give different ciphertexts, which is
confusing.

If you have been wondering if you should encrypt your
XML documents, and how to do so, this book may clarify
many issues.

This book has been very helpful. I reads quickly and easily, and the CD provides great templates. Within a week I was able to stndardize my existing contracts and reduce the need for customization with each new client. Great Work Karl!!!

Nice work on this book Karl. After I finished it our general manager read it and could not believe the resources contained within. It is not only a book about service agreements for the SMB consulting space but a great tool relating to all aspects of your business practices. We are now in the process of having our lawyer (as you suggest) reviewing our new contracts. Keep putting out these little gems!!

It's hard to find good information on the business side of IT consulting.

We started a year ago with decent technical skills but not much in the way of business training. Since then we've built a company which is supporting us, but couldn't see how to take it to the next level.

I purchased Managed Services in a Month and a week later had converted two break/fix customers over to managed services contracts worth thousands every year in recurring income.

This book is not cheap, but it is extraordinarily good value. It's cost is still less than one billable hour (at least if you're pricing yourself reasonably, something this book teaches you to do) and you'll make it back tenfold with the first contract (included with the book) that you get signed.

If you're an independent IT pro dealing with small business networks or servers then this book will help you take your business to the next level.

Highly recommended, and I'll be buying other books from Great Little Book Publishing very soon.

This is the book to have on your shelf. Karl will walk you through how his contracts are setup, what the parts mean, and the basic structure of delivering managed services via a contract vehicle. You can't get this kind of consulting help this easily, and Karl will give you everything you need. I highly recommend it.

If you want to offer service agreements to your IT customers, or are not sure of the value of selling service agreements, buy and read this book. When you are finished, you will be able to start offering service agreements - it's as simple as that. Thanks to Karl, I'm in the process of proposing 4 service agreements. The $50.00 for the book will be paid for by the first one so it's definitely money well-spent. On that note, I appreciate the short, concise format because that made it that much easier and faster to read. Technology books with hundreds of pages are more often than not nothing but "fat." Not with Karl's book - lean and right to the point.

Whether you know nothing, something, or a lot about IT service agreements, this book is an excellent resource. It will show you nearly everything you need to know about service agreements, from the perspective of someone who is obviously very adept at running his own IT business.

In the past when I tried to come up with something on my own, I just stared at a blank screen. Although I could come up with a handful of bullets of what should be included in a service agreement, Karl points out many things I hadn't thought of, including what not to cover. He also provides actual frameworks and examples of the agreement language. I really like his practice of having more than one type of agreement.

I am managing a new project that has SNMP as a feature requirement. I needed to get a good working familiarity with the technology fast. After reading two other popular books on the subject I found the SNMP MIB Handbook by Larry Walsh a much easier read and much more informative. Concepts are presented in a logical order that makes sense the first time through. Practical issues and common problems are discussed in detail and help avoid the numerous pitfalls a first time MIB developer would run into. It has become my primary reference book for the subject.

I have worked with an SNMP network management system for several years and have always struggled with the terminology in general and the construction of MIBs specifically. After only a few minutes of reading the book I realized that this book would explain a lot of areas that I had had problems with. It really peaked my interest and I found that I couldn't put it down.

I purchased this book to use as an intro text for the development of my first SNMP agent. The first 3 chapters provided the solid base of general SNMP understanding I needed to understand the role an agent plays in the overall protocol, and provided essential insight into the industry conventions, and the difference between the different SNMP versions. I also like the book's organization. Whenever a new term or concept was introduced, it was explained nearby, so I didn't find myself having to flip back and forth through the book to figure out what was going on.

It turns out that developing a good MIB is hard, so the real gold of the book is the latter part of the book, which details everything you need to know about MIBs, from traps to complex tables, and discusses many common mistakes made during MIB development.

I can use "the google", so before I bought this book I browsed around the internet thinking I could pick up what I would need from faqs and specs. It turned out that it's difficult to find good complete SNMP information floating around out there. I could find bits and pieces, but critical nagging details were always missing.

If you are a MIB network manager, developer or user, you need this book. It will help network managers to identify bad MIB's, developers to write correct MIB's, and users to repair MIB's. Novice or expert, there's something in this book for you.

There are many illustrations, screen shots, and examples of actual MIB's. This is one of the easiest SNMP books to read and understand because of its excellent organization. The author starts with basic concepts and builds from there. And, because this book provides such a clear and concise guide to MIB's, it is an excellent companion to "Essential SNMP" by Mauro and Schmidt.

A well written, logically organized text targeted at developers and end-users.

The author lays a strong foundation with the SNMP tutorial followed by a meticulous, step-by-step description of how to construct high quality MIBs. He has managed to balance the need to cover advanced concepts without glossing over the basic concepts. The text works as both an instructional manual and a reference.

I strongly recommend that you purchase this text. Personally, I keep it within arm's reach.