Internet Books

It goes into the basics of bandwidth calculation, leading up to the technologies used to support the different kind of services.

If one were to look for a good read, this book is a good start for a newbie.

This book could be used as a pre-cursor to an indepth research into new technologies.

ADSL, ATM, ISDN is mentioned in the book.

Lastly, this book is not drab and has some humour in it.

Before I started reading this book I had some idea about ATM. Author explains from scratch giving good background about basic communication systems and then starts with why ATM? ,ATM protocol ,reference model and AALx. Finally covering the current trend in home computing . In generally this book is good start for the people who knows IP and whats to know about ATM and this is a good self study book.

I am an Telco engineer implementing adsl and cable modem networks for broadband access service in China. The book came just in time for me because my company is in the stage of building an ATM network providing service like Internet surfing and experimental vod etc via adsl and cable modem. And this book has given us quite clear an infrastructure for the practice.

I am a teacher and consultant to the telecom industry. I bought the book to sharpen my skill set and increase literacy. I was most impressed with Mr. Kwok's ability to take a highly technical subject and break it down understandably. The end result is that both the "techno-literati" and the "average Joe" are well-served. Mr. Kwok apparently is one of us "techies" who also paid attention in writing class. Kudos for an excellent reference work.

Don Gilbert M.S. DG Consulting

To let a multibillion dollar creation escape from you is something hard to get over. "Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Face Book Era" is Aaron Greenspan's amazing story of having developed the enormously popular Face Book software, only to let it escape from his grasp to the benefit of others. Greenspan candidly lays out the inherently fascinating story of his life - the memoir of an idealistic young man with huge dreams and an innovative idea -- only to be betrayed and have his creation stolen from him, then exploited for millions. "Authoritas" is a highly recommended look behind the famous Face Book website, and a recommended addition to academic and community library Biography collections.

This book is odd. It's well written and the narrative is compelling; enough for me to read it all in one go.

The stories of inadequate ego-driven teachers and students early on in the book are relayed well. The book's exposure of incompetence, back-scratching and favoritism from supposedly upstanding academic leaders is excellent. This is a good reason to read this book, and for excellently depicting an often overlooked part of academic life, this book deserves 4 stars.

The problem is, that's not why I bought the book. I was expecting a book about the "founding of the Facebook era" as the sub-title suggests. This, however, is certainly not a focus. From 335 pages in all, the name "Mark Zuckerberg" first appears on page 287, and any facts relating to Facebook's rise are within only the last 40 pages, mixed with of indignation.

Initially the author developed a system called CriticalMass that allowed students to rate their satisfaction of different academics at Harvard. Textbook Central, a textbook trading site, followed. Another system called FAStWebmail allowed Harvard students to access their official Harvard e-mail accounts over the Web. These were eventually rolled into a system called houseSYSTEM that included some other features like course preselection and calendars.

For a few chapters after explaining how these systems were developed, the focus is on how the administration and some other students considered houseSYSTEM to be insecure and flawed, due to its pseudo-requirement to have users' official Harvard passwords (in order for the webmail function to work) and a lack of proper SSL (HTTPS) security.

In dealing with these concerns the author showed a lack of technical knowledge. He protested that only an MD-5 hash of users' passwords were stored, but if this were the case, how did his system then access the users' official e-mail accounts? The author doesn't provide a proper level of detail to make a judgment as an independent reader, and the way he portrays it may just be very poor.

The author also says "Brian Wong is telling people that MD-5 generates 16-byte hashes, when it doesn't! There are 32 characters in all of them! Each ASCII character is one byte!" MD-5 generates a 16 byte hash (128 bits). That a textual hexadecimal representation of that 16 byte hash takes 32 characters does not make it a "32 byte hash."

The author has a habit of "quoting" his mental monologue, nearly all of which is negative in nature, and assuming whoever he's talking to is either an idiot or out to get him. The author's paranoia (warranted or not) permeates the last half of this book enough to make for uneasy reading. He also jumps to exaggerated conclusions. Shortly after the initial security concerns, the university decides that Greenspan needs to delete the password hashes he had collected so far and "forward the list of all those whose information you have collected" in order that those students could have their passwords reset. Instead of complying with this reasonable request, the author rants about how the users table has other information like phone numbers in it and asks "What, do they want those, too?" The e-mail he quotes requested a list of people who signed up for his site, not other details. This doesn't stop the author from eventually sending the whole user table anyway!

On the SSL issue, the text implies that a self-signed certificate was used, but the author appears not to understand the identification issues with this (though those who e-mail him appear to). It's a common theme that the author quotes well-thought-out e-mails and refutes them poorly. He argues that a wildcard certificate would be necessary - costing some $1000, though InstantSSL had them for under $500 at the time - not realizing he could use a regular SSL certificate (under $50) for the password transfer (the parts where security really counted), and a wildcard cookie for cross sub-domain authentication beyond that.

On Facebook, he seems to feel that Zuckerberg's developments, though independent, were a rip off of his own even though Zuckerberg is constantly quoted as remaining separate. houseSYSTEM did have a "face book" feature where pictures of students were located along with their names, but this had no social networking aspect. Zuckerberg's did. Nothing the author relays gives me the impression he "founded" the "Facebook" era.

On page 302, I feel that Greenspan attempts to blackmail Facebook. Despite considering Zuckerburg "inarticulate and naive," he suggested that he join Facebook. When told they needed an engineer with 15 years' experience, Greenspan highlighted Facebook's problems with ConnectU (who were suing Facebook for allegedly copying their idea and stealing code) and suggested that he had "grounds to sue both of you" before suggesting that if Facebook would hire him, he'd be on their side and help the lawsuit go away.

The last 20 pages are dire. The author claims that having a full Facebook profile "would have meant I endorsed intellectual property theft" without realizing that information willingly shared is not "thieved."

Lastly, the author appears to rub most people in the book up the wrong way. Other than his closest associates and his family, almost every social interaction seems to result in the author antagonizing someone or being ignored. In most cases, he relies on his father to write e-mails and letters on his behalf (mostly unsuccessfully), rather than fight his own battles. "If Mark can get $2 billion for my ideas, I should at least be able to get a couple million!" sums up what I see as a jealous, paranoid individual who, as it happens, has written a gripping and interesting book.

As good as this book is, I sense Greenspan isn't the sort of person to get over his envy and indignation, and it saddens me that his personality appears to restrict him from achieving all that he could be.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," Yossarian observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

That is the famous line from Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, Catch 22.

Authoritas is the autobiography of Aaron Greenspan's adventures growing up in Shaker Heights, then attending Harvard, and then finding himself in Harvard's 21st-century version of Heller's Catch 22.

Authoritas is an interesting, fast paced and a times humorous read.

While at Harvard, Greenspan develops by all accounts the very first version of what is now the international website "Facebook."

Aaron Greenspan writes very well and really knows computing. With that combination I think we will be hearing a lot from Mr. Greenspan in the future.

Heller's John Yossarian would have loved reading Authoritas.

At some levels, the book is just an absolutely engaging story. At other levels, it shines a harsh light on uncaring, uncreative, and unimaginative people involved at administrative levels of education. At times, you'll be astounded at the depths educational administrators go to squash creativity, deny entrepreneurship, and cover themselves at the expense of providing service to education.

Aaron Greenspan graduated from Harvard. And although he is a successful CEO of his own company (Think Computer), his success came despite his Harvard education. In Authoritas you'll find Aaron struggle to avoid the crushing of the human spirit and the crushing of the innate desire to learn and his determination to provide compassionate assistance to his autistic brother.

Aaron's story is personal, engaging, and important.

I bought this book knowing a good bit about regular ASP and how to communicate with databases, hoping to learn how to do the same thing with ASP.NET. I was not disappointed. The book walks you through step-by-step in creating database connections, command objects, stored procedures, etc... It doesn't dwell too long on topics that it shouldn't be covering (like database design, and web site design). The instructions within the book identify software that is free, so there are no unpleasant surprises. This book will be a great reference and has really helped me make the jump from ASP to ASP.NET.

This book does a good job explaining how to work with databases. The one thing I didn't realize is the only language used for examples is C#. It would be nice if VB examples were also included.

I really liked this book because it shows step-by-step how to do things and then has a "How does it work?" section. Great book! Well written and seems quite comprehensive.

Almost every book with ASP.NET 2.0 in the title will tell you something about the Grid View, Detail View, Form View, SQLDatasource and the SQL 'Select' statement; this one will too. While the other books provide a rudimentary overview of these topics then move on, "Begining ASP.NET 2.0 Databases: From Novice to Professional" takes you way beyond the SQLDatasource and the 'Select' statement, delving deep into ADO.NET.

Just as bread & butter go together ASP.NET and databases go together; and there is a lot more to the database side of the equation than is brought out in most ASP.NET books, which tend to limit themselves to the use of the controls, getting into databases only enough to have something to show in the controls. with this book it is the other way around; the reason for the controls is to display and maninpulate data in a database, and there are several ways to access and manipulate databases with ADO.NET besides the SQLDatasource. Along the way you will learn to use the controls with all the different data access formats and how to use the controls and their events to manipulate the data, which is what it's really all about.

If DataReader, Command Object, DataSet, OLEDBDatasource and ODBCDatasource are not familiar terms to you, and you want to develop ASP.NET web sites you need this book. If you don't know when not to use the SQLDatasource (there are some definite situations when it won't work), or don't know how to create a server side data cache and why you would want to, you need this book.

The book is easy to read and has numerous small exercises titled "Try It Out", after each exercise is a "How It Works" section where the code in the previous exercise is explained, line by line in most cases. Not only does Damien take you through DataReader, Datasets and Commands he also covers stored procedures, which you will want to use rather than queries in code shown in most of the other books.

While the book primarily uses SQL Server 2005, MYSQL 5.0 is also covered at the same time, everything from installing and configuring to using with stored procedures, parameters and transactions.

If you want to build ASP.NET web sites you will work with databases, if you are not intimately familiar with ADO.NET this book should be on your bookshelf readily available.

As a beginner to Web Applications, i found this book extremely easy to understand. The book covers all the topics necessary to get going to develop a complete basic web application. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants information regarding State Management, Data Binding, ADO, UI/Web Controls, Basic Security etc. Also, this book would be very useful to anyone who has little or no experience with ASP.NET before and who want to get their basics right before plunging on to a project. Great book!!

Before reading this book I had developed a few simple web applications, but I was ready for a more in depth approach utilizing all of the excellent features provided by .NET. This book covers a lot of the basic topics that will allow you to write code efficiently and quickly. Of course since there are a wide range of topics, one finds that some of them fail to go into great detail, but this is not even an issue as the author gives you enough information and examples to be able to figure it out for yourself, or at least to give you a solid foundation for solving the problem. The only downside is that, as far as I know, the code examples do not exist on Wrox's website. Perhaps I couldn't find them? It's not really a big issue because most of the code is easy to follow. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants beginning/intermediate information regarding State Management, Data Binding, ADO, UI/Web Controls, Basic Security and more.

Being new to .Net and redirecting my career into software development, I've found Daniel's book to be one of most well written and insightful books on C# and Visual Studio.net. He moves quickly into the nuts and bolts of the .Net classes and provides innovative code that go beyond the obvious. You are given multiple methods of handling logic in the same code-behind. The authors cleared much confusion I had about server controls, data binding and ADO.Net. Readers will appreciate the applications development approach in the book which goes beyond theory and shows you how to apply your skills in solving real-world problems. I recommend you write the code yourself line by line and read the book cover to cover. He leads you step by step. You will discover the finer points of VS.net, not to mention the many properties of the .Net classes with Intellisense. I also like the SQL data interaction because this is so important with our customers. I highly recommend it!

As a technical reviewer of this book I found it to have a good mix of technical content and explaination which is ideal for helping developers to get started with ASP.NET.

The book explores various areas of key functionality within ASP.NET and supports it with a sample application. I'd recommend this book to anyone who hasn't had any experience with ASP.NET before and who want to get some understanding before undertaking a project.

As a teacher, nothing frustrates me more than knowing tools exist, even what the tools are, but not knowing how use them to increase students' learning. Daccord and Reich, both top-notch teachers, have done a superb job of solving this problem through clear but imaginative explanations and suggestions for recruiting the extraordinary possibilities presented by recent developments in technology, especially via the Internet.

Rather than being daunted by all these possibilities, picking just one or two great ideas from this book and folding them into one's teaching practice can have salutary effects on student learning and teacher enthusiasm for new ideas and approaches, and once those become habitual, one can return to dip again into this cornucopia of great ideas, exercises, and activities.

If you are a teacher or educator looking to develop ideas to utilize technology into your classroom this is a must have book. There are 10 chapters ranging from Enhancing Teaching and Learning with Multimedia to Class Management. Each chapter features one or two tools with specific directions (simply written) on how to use the tool as well as hundred's of web site's that are relevant to education. If you are someone who is looking to take technology into the classroom or want to learn more this is a well written, well researched book. I highly recommend it, you won't be disappointed!

The title of this book says it all. This book provides great background information and simple strategies for teaching WITH technology. As a professional development provider, I often see teachers struggle with how to use technology in their classrooms. Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology not only gives the background knowledge that teachers need, but it also shows teachers how to use technology as a tool to engage students in the classroom. Even better, the book is well-organized and an easy read - a great time saver for all busy teachers!

Good teaching has always been hard work; teaching writing, even harder. In Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology, Thomas Daccord and Justin Reich bring new tools to the job. Their classroom-tested ideas are presented with illustrations -- lots of illustrations -- and humor. They offer, for example, practical suggestions for getting more from your word processor. They also explore concept mapping applications and wikis as strategies for empowering young writers. This is a book for those who are new to teaching with technology as well as for veterans. Technology integration just got a little easier.

Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State, is neither an anti-porn zealot nor an "anything goes" libertarian. He finds adult pornography tolerable, even believing that "The positive aspects of...legal adult material should be stressed." (p. 222). But he is clearly opposed to child pornography, believing that it should remain illegal and that we should take measures to reduce its existence to a tolerable level.

I was reminded of the war against agricultural pests because what Professor Jenkins stresses is that it is impossible to get rid of child porn on the Net completely without destroying much of what is good about the Net. In trying to completely kill all the pests, we may inadvertently kill all the beneficial insects as well.

This book is ostensibly about the "kiddie porn" culture on the Web, its extent and what can be done about it. Jenkins uses quotes from child porn Bulletin Boards to demonstrate the mind set of the traffickers. He describes a war between citizen vigilante groups and the child pornographers, each employing their hacker expertise in trying to shut down the Web sites and expose the identities of their adversaries. Jenkins does not describe child pornography other than in the most general terms. He claims not to have actually seen any child pornography himself, noting that it is illegal to view such material even for research purposes, and indeed intimates that had he seen such material he would deny having seen it.

The picture that emerges is of a deviant, global community populated by persons hiding behind nicknames and proxies who view and exchange pictures of children through sites and servers from many different places in the world. Jenkins believes that because of the differing laws in the various countries, child pornography cannot be completely eliminated, that it can only be controlled. He depicts the regular deviants themselves as savvy, elusive individuals who change identities and addresses as they stay one step ahead of the law. Only the amateurs get caught.

But there is a bigger issue here emerging out of the struggle between law enforcement and the deviants, and that is the issue of privacy. How can we simultaneously monitor the Web sufficiently to trap, expose and prosecute child pornographers while at the same time protecting ourselves from Big Brother?

Jenkins begins Chapter Six, "Policing the Net," with a revealing quote from Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, a man who ought to know what he is talking about: "You already have zero privacy--get over it." My feeling is that our government and the large corporations already have enough information about us to serve a totalitarian regime (should one ever emerge). Every key stroke on Web can be monitored, recorded and stored. Right now this information is being used mostly for commercial purposes, but we can see how such information could be used to influence, intimidate and control individuals for political purposes. Consequently what this book is really about is the war between the interests of society and those of the individual, the social good verses private interest.

This war is of course as old as humanity, going back even into the tribal culture. But never before has there been such power to coerce and persuade. The tribal leader may have been all powerful within his tribe, so that if you went against him, you would meet with defeat. But you could run away to another place in the world, as humans have always done. Today, and increasingly tomorrow, there is and will be no place to run to.

One of the fears we have of one-world government, now enormously augmented with electronic and computer technology, as Jenkins notes, is that of a totalitarian state from which there is no escape. Our fear is that we will conform to the dictates of that state or we will be punished and "retrained." The Orwellian nightmare in comparison seems limited and amateurish.

So the struggle against the very real and intolerable evil of child pornography becomes in this book a precursor scenario of the struggle of the state against the individual. What Jenkins wants to see happen is some kind of control placed on the invasive nature of the state while somehow maintaining the ability to go after anti-social deviants like the child pornographers. Somehow the state must be restrained but the bad guys controlled.

This is an excellent book. Jenkins provides you with a wealth of information. By conducting his own original research into the newsgroups he gains a first-hand insight into the thoughts and involvments of these individuals, something quite unique!

Why aren't more people familiar with this book? It reads like a great novel and is full distrubing news: child pornography is a real problem on the internet. The book describes the inflitration of the kiddie porn community on the net by Jenkins and how this underground group of many thousands exhange images of child sex abuse. He writes very clearly about the recent history of child pornography and its explosive growth since the advent of the internet.

Some sociologists believe that child pornography is almost non-existent, a problem that was rooted out in the late 60's and 70's. Jenkins shatters this misconception and sheds some light on a very dark, very sick corner of the international underground.

Jenkins tackles a very difficult subject in a very professional manner. As Dennis Littrell suggested, Jenkins realizes that the 'trap the end user' approach will never even slow down the growth of this disturbing industry, and some of the more Draconian measures being suggested in some circles would only damage the freedom to surf of normal everyday users.

One point that many people might be unaware of is the fact that child pornography often involves children under five, as Jenkins suggests. Clearly this flies in the face of 'normal' sexual and reproductive urges, whereby males are only supposed to respond to females who are in the throes of puberty and beyond.

While it is certainly true to say that mere child nudity does not equate to child pornography, a common tactic of borderline sites is to place 'trigger' pictures in with legitimate 'lolita-esque' nude photos, which then lead to screens or sites that appear to offer a portal to an actual child pornography site, rather than plunging people straight into one.

The problem with writing books of this nature is that the Law is often in a state of flux. One of biggest 'gray' areas in terms of legality is the use of artificially generated/cgi child pornography. The 'pro' arguments suggest that as no children are being harmed or exploited, it doesn't qualify as child pornography. The 'contra' arguments suggest that it still involves images of adults having sex with children. At the time of writing this review, I believe it is still techincally legal.

Some years ago, a man was arrested for some sketches he made of naked adults and children embracing, without any specific suggestion of sexual contact. The counter argument to the prosecution stance made the point that drawing a sexual fantasy (or now, creating it with a computer graphics package) rather than merely thinking the same thoughts, should not be illegal, unless any attempt was being made to circulate it/them. The point being that this transition from a thought image to a cgi image, borders on the question of the Thought Crime of George Orwell's 1984, and the Inquisition logic of 'If she floats she's a witch and if she drowns, she's innocent'.

Jenkins has some solid ideas, such as monitoring message boards and the infrastructure by which the sub-net is able to operate, rather than setting up fake sites to lure in Joe Idiot who's just had a few beers, and thinking that such actions will ever impact the industry.

One of the biggest factors in the quantum growth of the 'CP' industry is the availability of white, Eastern European child victims. Previously, white children were never available in such numbers, which seems to have been a natural limiter on certain areas of this darkest of growth industries.

Sadly, where ever there is poverty, there will always be exploitation, and the online CP industry is just one part of a bigger picture - of a World and a people gone wrong, and the failure of the human race to love each other in the face of all our differences.

Yes, read this and be concerned about the sexual exploitation of children, but never forget that the greater obscenity is that 34,000 children DIE every day throughout the same world in which some rich people have gold-plated bath taps.

This book tells you what big cats look like were they live what they eat how they eat. which oness are a threat to man kind. did you know that cheetah can top its speed out at 115kph thats (70mph). I think the purpose of this book is to let people learn about big cats.
I think the audience of this book would be cat lovers.
I'm not a cat lover but i really liked this book because I enjoy learning about animals.
josh i.

The purpose of this book is to give you information on tigers and where they live. The audience of this book I think should be teen-agers and up but it could be suitable for children above the age of seven. The dialouge is dimotic and easier to understand for most educated people, then it is for example children.This book tells about the types of tigers and other interesting cats that are worth noting.It tells about where the tigers and other big cats live. How they hunt and how big their hunting area is. How much food they intake at one sitting and
how long they will go without food after eating a big meal.
This book tells about how they kill their prey and it even tells some of their killing tatics.One of the big cats known as the cheatah looks like a greyhound dog. I think you sould read this book if your looking for an infomational book.
Maria G

This books main purpose is to inform the reader about the world of big cats. Good reading skills is an essential in reading this book. These skills will enable you to better understand this book. I would recommend this book in the near future but maybe not in 20 years because the information may change. Usborne Discovery: Big Cats captures all the aspects of big cats. It shows glorious images of big cats to help illustrate the text. This book also compares big cats to domesticated house cats to help the reader connect and experience what the author is informing the reader. They go in depth with everything from big cat mating to myths and legends about big cats. Sections and pictures from this book can be accessed online. I love animals and still learned some interesting facts from this book like the fact that tigers cannot roar. This book allows the reader to experience an animal that they may never get to experience up close.
Megan S.

The book that I had read was called "Big Cats." It was a interesting book. It informed the reader of interesting facts and locations of these giant felines. I would definitly recommend this book to cat lovers. The book is filled with all sorts of interesting facts. It hits on the subject of habitats and behaviors of cats in the wild. It talks about how thier becoming endangered due to hunting and deforestation.The reader is bound to learn at least one fact when through reading this book.

without a doubt - - - the most useful book i've ever seen. If you haven't bought it yet---order your copy now!

without a doubt - - - the most useful book i've ever seen. If you haven't bought it yet---order your copy now!

This is the book we have been waiting for. At long last, an easy to use, comprehensive guide that is as unbiased as it is informative. From internet newbies to experinced surfers, this book is terrific. I bought it as a gift, but ended up using it so much myself, that I bought a second copy. Be forewarned, one copy is not enough.

This is the best tool anyone could want this Christmas! It gives you the best online store locations to shop at! I don't even have to leave my house this year to buy a single gift.

The guide gives a great alphabetical listing of the good vendors listed on bizrate.com, along with their BizRating--so you know who you're buying from, and what type of reputation they have with other BizRate customers. Some entries even have comments straight from users' mouths. A great deal at a low price--something every avid online buyer should have.

This book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in cultural resouces! As a social worker, I have found this book to be exteremely helpful for families and children. I highly recommend it!

This book is amazing! It has so much information. I have not been able to find so much information in one spot until I picked up this book. I particularly like the sites with Afrocentric children's games, online activities and books. But there is so much more than that. Parents: buy this book now! It is a worthwhile investment.

After reading this book, I was thrilled! There is so much useful information in it. No matter if you use the Internet sporadically or if you peruse the Net everyday, all day like I do, then there is something for you.
This book is simply a condensed and Black parenting specific search engine compiled into book form. No longer do parents have to be bothered with tooling around search engines, when most likely the results will be scant. Stacey Montgomery has done all of the work for you and keeps an updated list of Black parenting web resources on her website. A must buy for Black parents looking for Black parenting websites!

Stacey Montgomery has done a phenomenal job compiling about 375 web sites -- designed for the Black family -- into one resource. Her book is truly a "one-stop" shopping of information that is divided into 20 categories. There's something for everyone in this book.

For the regular Internet user such as myself -- who stays on the lookout for unique educational products for my family -- Montgomery's book is hard to put down. However, for those persons who surf the Internet very little or not at all, "Black Families Online" is still a powerful resource to have nearby because of its good-to-know information.

Thanks to this book, I have already begun compiling a list of my own of places to shop on the web for Christmas items and such. In "Black Families Online" I've come across web sites that I never knew existed that offer products that I never knew existed........a Multiplication Hip Hop CD and puzzles and interesting games that teach Black history, just to name a few.

In addition to providing an annotated list of web sites, Montgomery has added some nice additional touches, too. Quotes throughout the book from web site owners and parents answering the question, "Why go online?" or stating "Why my business is online" are also fun to read.

This book is a masterpiece. Montgomery should be proud of what obviously took a lot of time and effort.

Many thanks to her for a resource that has truly enriched my life. When not in my hands, this book is sure to stay close to my computer. I know I'll be using it often!!!

This book really goes a long way and covers every aspect of the matter.

I bought two books when I got this one: The other was Rebecca Blood's "the Weblog Handbook." It's a two-star, at best, while this one is four and 3/4. I only withhold the 1/4 because some terminology wasn't clear. I had read the MacWorld reviews of all the systems Todd covered, and I knew I wanted to use only one of them, because it offered the features I need. The terminology, though, was contained in the chapters on the other systems, so I had to go into the index and look them up. (The term I'm thinking of is "bookmarklet," but there were others.) A separate chapter on terminology would have been helpful. Still, it's the best book out there on getting it up (your Blog, that is). Immediately following finishing the book, I emailed Rick Ellis, the Technical Consultant (and creator of pMachine), got immediate answers, and have signed up to start my blog on Rick's service. The website blogonbook.com is good, too, though it doesn't show correctly in Netscape 4.7. I read the book in two days. Entertaining, informative. (Bill ...)

This is a well-structured, practical and fairly comprehensive look at blogging. It covers everything from the basic question of whether you need a weblog, through how to set up and use some of the popular software offerings, to writing, tweaking, and publicizing your blog. There's also a small section on using blogs in business. The author comes over as someone who knows his stuff; I like the clear line drawn between using a hosted service, and running your blog on your own machine, for example.

As with any book which gives such precise installation and operation details, this one is likely to date quickly when the available software changes. It also has only thin coverage of more lasting social and community aspects, so if you find a copy that's several years old, make sure the bulk of the book still makes sense before buying. It's not a secret, but the book has a strong affiliation with the pMachine blogging software, and in places this seems to crowd out alternative approaches a bit.

In general, a solid and worthwhile book for a beginner to blogging. This book gives you all the tools and knowledge to get started, but once you decide that blogging is for you and want to take it further, make sure to check out a wider range of software and deeper, more theoretical, books such as Powazek's "Design for Community" and Blood's "The Weblog Handbook".

This is a truly remarkable book. It is both a detailed primer for weblog novice and serves well as a reference for the experienced blogger or one desiring to attain that level.
Stauffer's organization of his material is unusually well structured. He begins at the very beginning: what is a blog, why you might want one and so one. Then there's a walk-through of four different blogging platforms, which is surprisingly detailed, yet easy to comprehend. This section not only cleared up a lot of mysteries for me, but also introduced me to the remarkable pMachine.
He then moves on to writing, designing and tweaking your blog - with information I didn't find in the other three books I first read. Finally, he concludes with sections on publicizing yourt blog and how to use it in business environments.
Overall, a remarkable tour de fource and in my estimation, the best book on blogging currently available. As noted I've read three of them and looked at all the others. This is the only one I would unreservedly endorse -- and I am not easy to please.

Jerry