Software Books

This is a essential book for beginners and advanced users. DBAs can have good references to implement ASM without problems. There are many information not found in conventional forums.

Other than Oracle documentation, this is the only ASM source of information that I know of. This book is a relatively fast read and comes in at under 300 pages.

The first chapter is very helpful and I learned some information about disk storage that I did not know. I am more comfortable talking with SAN and system administrators now. They also get the feel that I know what I am talking about. After the first chapter, the book dives right into ASM architecture and management. Each chapter is well written and easy to understand. This book also covers the new features in Oracle 11 and you can see that Oracle is dedicated to maturing ASM. ASM is here to stay and it will gain in popularity.

One of the areas that I thought could have been better is the discussion and explanation of RAC, ASM and how the cluster registry is affected. It would have been nice to have a chapter on OCFS just as a supplement. Some shops will utilize both OCFS and ASM. OCFS will host the OCR and voting file as ASM can not be used.

If you are new to ASM or you are an expert, this book is a good read. If you are new to ASM will get more out of it (obviously) since it covers everything you need to know to install and maintain ASM. Fortunately since this is the only ASM book (as of today) and it is great source of information you will not be wasting your time. This book comes highly recommended.

George Loewenthal
Denver, Colorado

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Under-the-Hood & Practical Deployment Guide.This is a must have book for those who are working on ASM or who are planning to implement ASM.Chapters like "ASM Space Allocation and Rebalance","ASMLIB Concepts and Overview","Managing Database in ASM" and "ASM and Storage Array Configuration" gives you in detail information.

After reading the book I can say that now I know what actually is ASM/How it works/How to Implement ASM and I don't need any more training on ASM.


-MOHAMMED MOINUDDIN UMAIR
Senior Tuning Consultant,LEHMAN BROTHERS,NEW JERSEY

One of the authors of this book is the director of development for ASM. Who would know more about it than the developers? The other 2 implement it in many different environments. Lastly, the technical reviewer Charles Kim wrote the 11g new features book for Apress. There could not be a better group of people to write a book about ASM and review it than these individuals.

I would highly recommend this book for any DBA that will be working with ASM and / or RAC. The high performance, ease of use, and low cost make it a very attractive solution. This book will teach you everything you need to know about ASM (that's why it's called an "Under-the-Hood" guide). It also makes an excellent reference.

Someone recenlty mentioned that Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) is probably the best thing ever happened to Oracle next to SQL*Plus. I would second that. However there was no definitive text available in the market and Nitin & co perfectly filled the gap with this classic one.

This book starts with the basics of the storage technology and moves towards the center of the ASM with deep discussions on ASM data structures, ASM in operation and ASM troubleshooting. Nitin probably probably knows more about ASM than anyone I know and excels in explaining the complex technologies in easy to understand manner. You will immensely benefit from his wisdom and real life experience.

A must read for Oracle Storage Administrators and DBAs working with RAC/ASM.

Since there doesn't seem to be any plan to update this book for XP, 2003 or 2007, this is still the definitive tome on programming with Outlook VBA. An excellent desktop reference, although it reads more like a dictionary than a true book, but for a straight up list of Outlook constants, it cannot be beat. If you program in Office VBA you must own this book.

This is the best book I've seen on the subject. Very well organized and clear. If you're programming Outlook you need this book.

Here's a tip. Use VBA whenever possible, rather than the VB Script available on the Outlook forms. The book shows you how to program for events such as the addition of a new item or changing an item. You can avoid VB Script programming on the forms this way.

Very Informative. I highly recommend this book. I was able to get the information I needed very easily.

This book was awesome! I used it to help me write VBA code to connect our SQL 7 database to the Outlook Calendar. As staff members update the SQL database, the information will show in individual calendars as soon as Outlook is started up!!! I also plan to use it generate Task Lists from the database. There aren't many books written on Outlook VBA so if you are looking for some answers start here first!!!

Before this book was available, I used the Outlook Help files as a reference for objects, methods, properties and events. Anyone who has used the Outlook Help files knows how prone they are to errors, so this book was a welcome edition to my collection. I use it so regularly, that the spine on my copy has already has a crease.

If you are serious about learning/improving your Spanish, buy it! This is a Spanish/English English/Spanish Dictionary. It is wonderful because not only does it have tons of entris but it seems to have examples for all if not most of its entreis. Example, say you want to learn the word "flat" in spanish. It will give you English sentences or phrases for the various connotations of the word "flat" and it will have the spanish translation for each of the English connotations! This is great becaus you'll know that your getting the right Spanish word for the concept you want to convey.

If you are serious about learning/improving your Spanish, buy it! This is a Spanish/English English/Spanish Dictionary. It is wonderful because not only does it have tons of entris but it seems to have examples for all if not most of its entreis. Example, say you want to learn the word "flat" in spanish. It will give you English sentences or phrases for the various connotations of the word "flat" and it will have the spanish translation for each of the English connotations! This is great becaus you'll know that your getting the right Spanish word for the concept you want to convey.

This is the best dictionary I have ever used. Not only is it fast and easy to look up words, but it also has a wealth of definitions/meanings for each one. It is one of the few dictionaries I have found that also includes regional slang. It's a little pricy, but its ease of use makes it worth every peseta, er, penny.

I've been working with this dictionary and it's a real good tool both for profesionals and students. It makes it sooo easy to look for phrasal verbs, or idioms in the twinkle of an eye. Very recommendable!!

Before purchasing I did a lot of reading and felt this was the best out there for a Spanish-English CD, and I am not disappointed.

With the other reviews I agree that the thoroughness of this dictionary is outstanding. Most words are put in a variety of contexts to show different usages including common idiomatic expressions and regional expressions according to country. I use it daily as an essential tool in studying Spanish.

However, as a sofware product at $50 it is pretty lousy. The design is clumsy. The search is awkward and very limited, that is, you can't look up combinations of words in quotes. Still, all things considered, this does not hold it back from being worth the price. For the basics it's very easy to use and I recommend it.

I have recently began developing in Paradox 7, and bought Mike Prestwoods Paradox 7 Programming Unleashed. It is great. It covers, I think, every area of Object Pal. I have not read every page yet, because some of the topics, like DDE, DLL and OLE are something I will start exploring later. But it makes it clear that you can use many Windows 95 features.

The book first explain the area to be covered, and then gives you lots of small examples, that you can test, or just read. It strengthen the idea that you should write not much code, but effective.

Among many other things it gives you several ways to pass variables, important but difficult for the newbee.

The book is even fun to read, and really helps you getting into OPAL. I strongly recommend it.

This book is full of practical examples and gives you a clearer idea of the unique nature of Paradox's ObjectPAL language.

Mike has done an excellent job of exposing the details of Paradox, and putting it all together into a readable format that can be used as a reference by beginner and advanced programmers alike.

The strong point of this book is it's index, which is beyond complete, it is intense.

Over the years, I have purchased nearly every Paradox for Windows books I could get my hands on. Things have to be worded just right in order for it to sink into my thick skull. This book is excellent in every way. The examples and explainations along the way "Can't Be Beat". You can't go wrong if you intend to program in Paradox for Windows, especially if you use this book. I'm still waiting for this writer to produce a Paradox version 8 book. Let's hope its soon!

I have Mike Prestwood's since Paradox 5. All contents are really my advisor whenever I want any essential information. In the next version of Paradox, I would like Mike to add some more feature on OLE, OLE AUTO and BLOB field in Interbase table or, in other word, Paradox for Client/Server Version.

I like this book and am still reading it and I think I can pick up lots of skills and knowledge about Web Services. One more thing I want to mention here is that I accidentally hit a button on amazon web pages for purchasing this book so I ended up buying 2 copies of this book, a hard copy and a soft copy. I should get refund on the soft copy becuase I never review it online. The following is the part of the order info for the soft copy:

Order #: D01-8384140-5827130
Subtotal of items: $ 11.99
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Total before tax: $ 11.99
Estimated Tax: $ 0.00
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Total: $ 11.99
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Total for this Order: $ 11.99

My primary reason for buying this book was the eye-catcher word "Real-World Projects" in the subtitle. I'm a professional developer/architect of enterprise size IT-projects and the fastest way for me to learn new things is by using examples. So in fact the "Development Perspective" chapter was the first chapter I've read and found it very useful if you are going to use WebSphere 5 in your project.
I was pleased to see that the next chapter "Operational Perspective" actually deals with questions regarding deployment and configuration. This is something most books are missing and many projects underestimate the importance of these aspects for a successful rollout.
Finally after reading two very useful chapters (written in an enjoyable style), I've decided to give the other chapters also a try and I wasn't disappointed. This book covers all important aspects for a successful webservice project and I strongly recomment it if you are going to start such a project.
During my time as a technical lead at Hewlett-Packard, I've got the opportunity to participate a pretty expensive software architect workshop. I was pleased to see lots of "Does and Dont's" I've learned in this workshop in the "Architecture Perspective" chapter of this book.
I finally ended up in reading all chapters of the book. I haven't read all pages of this book because of my previous knowledge and because of the excellent offered shortcuts within this book. But the time I've spent reading the rest was a rewarding investment. Whatever role you are going to play in a webservice project: you will find something useful within this book.
And finally don't forget: even Grady Booch thinks this book is a must-have. He wrote a nice forword for the book.

If you had to time or money for just one book on Web Services, this would be it. The book truly delivers on different perspectives namely, business, training, architecture, development, operational and "future". You start by learning enough to convince your boss (or clients, in my case) of the benefits of using your approach and then proceed to master the whole XML based implementations as well. Dense read, though: there is enough material in each chapter to cover an entire book. If you are a java programmer, it makes it even better, most probably because the book came out in 2003 when Microsoft .NET was still pretty clueless about all this web services stuff anyway. Even the J2EE world is way ahead of the book in terms of implementation. Still an excellent read, so my only request would be...a second, updated edition!

This book excells in explaining the IBM Toolsets and their applicability in the Web Services and SOA area. Unfortunately they are for version 5 and a version 6.x addendum would be great.
Having said that working the examples into version 6 format is good practice and not too much sweat.
This book provides all the coverage you need if you are dealing with the IBM WebSphere kit (all the IBM Redbooks are also a great help!)

Review:

"Perspectives on Web services: Applying SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to Real-World Projects" Zimmermann O., Tomlinson M., Peuser S.; Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 2003.

This voluminous text is essentially about the classic man-machine relationship model.

The reviewer became interested in this topic and monitored the slowly evolving field until 1962 when he published a paper entitled "Shaping and Controlling Human Behaviour in Man-Machine Systems"; Proceedings of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Industrial Administration and Engineering Production Group, Vol. 177, Number 34, pp 935-950; 1963 (1 Birdcage Walk, Westminister, SW 1).

He presented the Performance System Spectrum with Man at one end and the Machine at the other. In between these two extremes he defined and illustrated a multitude of combinations including Simple Man-Machine, Complex Man-Machine, Men-Machine, Man-Machine-Man, Man-Machine-Men, and Men-Machine-Men.


By 1963, time-sharing and remote operator terminals had evolved and the computer systems were mainframe...the personal computer and the Internet, if they were envisioned at all, would have been considered purely science-fiction. In relation to the Men-Machine-Men system, he wrote: "...the total system has become so complex, with so many inputs from and outputs to human(s), that design engineers tend to move towards a fully automated system..." In the more than four decades which followed, the flood of computerized systems (and computer acronyms) increased as anyone reading this can testify. And that brings us to today...and Web Services.

We shall see that Web Services satisfies the definition and is a Men-Machine-Men system. To quickly understand what Web Services is the average reader shouldn't start with the text under review but with an excellent article, "The Web Within the Web," Enrique Castro-Leon, IEEE Spectrum, February 2004, pp 42-46. Examining this paper first and then delving leisurely into "Perspectives on Web Services: Applying SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to Real-World Projects" will have a higher payoff even for those readers who are experienced software engineers, developers, analysts, and systems architects.

Castro-Leon presents a concise thumbnail view of this emerging concept. He argues that "...dusty, musty databases filled with useful data that would be far more useful if linked with other, equally dusty databases; enormous databases that are locked up inside ancient mainframes and quaintly archaic minicomputers; lonely databases residing on specialized file servers throughout an enterprise (pronounced business); even modern databases on Web servers...(are) stuck in long-obsolete proprietary formats or accessible only through hypermodern scripting languages..." Further, "... Web services are a way programmers can make their databases available across the Web , let other programmers access them, and tie these disparate databases together into services that are novel, perhaps even wonderful..." This, of course, is the basic reasoning for improving the Machine part of the Men-Machine-Men performance system.

"...Web browsers have liberated us from the tyranny of specific hardware and the near monopoly of the Windows operating system...(because of)...the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which provides a standard for the way Web pages are downloaded from a Web site to a computer, and the generic nature of Web pages themselves..." The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) ",...was designed to encode things that will be viewed by people, rather than processed by another machine. HTML mixes formatting commands...with data because it was designed as a display language..." Castro-Leon continues: "...if Web services are to build powerful networks of collaborating databases and services, the first step is replacing HTML with something more compatible with the world of databases, something that can be understood by another computer...such a new language has been developed...a subset of HTML, called XML, for Extensible Markup Language..."

This movement to improve the Machine subsystem did not end with the invention of XML. There had to be some mechanism to move XML data rather than HTML across the Internet. This was SOAP --- Simple Object Access Protocol --- a generic wrapper which is an envelope recognized and accepted by Web browsers and servers. Together, XML and SOAP give Web Services interoperability.

However, another specification was needed called UDDI ---Universal Discovery, Description and Integration --- which, as Castro-Leon states, "...lets Web Services look for databases (by Machine) in the same way that Google lets humans look for Webpages..." But the process didn't end with the development of UDDI. There had to be a standard which allowed the Machine to determine what is at a site once it has been identified. This standard was WSDL --- Web Services Description Language. All of these protocols took years to develop....and the improvements continue to this day.

Having presented an overview of Web Services from Castro-Leon, it is now time to review the 648 page text entitled, "Perspectives on Web Services: Applying SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to Real-World Projects" This is in essence a "how-to" or a "cook" book, using an old world term, which goes into exquisite detail about how these software elements work inside the Machine and how to utilize them effectively and profitably. One might describe it as a "Web Services for Dummies" type of text but written at a much higher intellectual and professional level. The occasional humor is within acceptable limits and not extreme.

In the Men-Machine-Men model, the Machine is represented by all of the computer systems in the Internet world-wide and includes SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI as software and all of the hardware world-wide. The Men at one side are all the humans dealing with the Internet as users while the Men on the other side of the Machine are all the software people feeding the Machine world-wide with data and graphics which are then manipulated inside the Machine by SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI. You can visualize that the users might have a population of millions and possibly billions of individuals and the software people might represent a population of millions of individuals. That is why this volume on Web Services is an important reference today as the system is being implemented --- but there is a cautionary poem by the systems guy Kenneth Boulding regarding this Machine:

A system is a big black box
Of which we can't unlock the locks,
And all we can find out about
Is what goes in and what comes out.

Perceiving input-output pairs
Related by parameters
Permits us, sometimes, to relate
An input, output, and a state.

If this relation's good and stable,
Then to predict we may be able.
But if this fails us - heaven forbid
We'll be compelled to force the lid!

Having forced the lid --- you are now inside the Machine! The book is structured using the "goto" branching command. The authors encourage the reader to study a section and then decide to continue on or "goto" a different section. In fact, they suggest not reading from cover-to-cover at all but selecting those parts directly related to the reader's job role.

The text is neatly divided into Perspectives chapters which follow a typical project sequence: Business, Training, Architecture, Development, Operational, Engagement, and Future. The authors state that they and their anticipated readers are "technical people" and their approach in writing was shaped in that way

Chapter 1 is The Business Perspective. In 30 pages they discusses definitions, EAI (Enterprise Application Integration), B2C (Business-to- Consumer), B2B (Business-to-Business), A2A (Application-to-Application), H2A (Human-to-Application), and potential inhibitors to decision-making. The Case Study of a fictitious insurance company is introduced which will be threaded throughout the book. Some of the flowchart models are clearer than others.

Chapter 2 is The Training Perspective. A better term for this perspective would be the "technical information" found in a manual used by individuals for self-instruction to learn about the software. 123 pages are devoted to a tutorial of concepts and technologies but the reader is not expected at this point to be able to apply them.

There is an overview of WebServices concepts and detailed information on the XML markup language including namespaces and schema. Attention to given to SOAP message formats and encoding. This is followed by WSDL, the interface description, containment structure of WSDL documents, and binding-related document elements. There are descriptions of UDDI's registry structure, identifier bag, category bag, binding template, tModel structure, linking to a UDDI registry, an API (Application Programming Interface) overview, and brief mention of WSIL (Web Service Inspection Language). There many well-designed coding sheet examples which would make sense to experienced programmers but probably not to novices.

About 86 pages are assigned to Chapter 3: The Architecture Perspective. The authors provide an introduction to Web Services architecture oulining paradigm changes, J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) and defining Web Services as the software part of the Machine. WSA (Web Services Architecture) is explained with the use of stacks and a disclaimer is provided since not all of the terms are universally accepted. WSA building blocks and component walkthrough is covered. Explanations are given for WS principles, Generic vs. Generated API, design patterns, business patterns, architectural patterns (microflow, intermediary, and interceptor/pipeline) and process choreography including public-to-private process mapping. Architectural decisions are outlined along with service matchmaking. In addition, NFRs (Non-Functional Requirements), gaps and countermeasures and SOAP Section 5 encoding are discussed. Finally, XML-based, WS, and application layer security are explained. There is a useful FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section ending the chapter.

Chapter 4 is The Development Perspective. Consisting of 192 pages, this chapter has a considerable amount of meat and consequently may cause indigestion for the vegetarians among us. The authors state that a reader should have a "...solid reading comprehension of J2SE and J2EE APIs..." It is written at a fairly deep level of detail related to reader motivation and categorizes this interest as: casual, steady or junkie. There is an emphasis on "goto" branching. Most of the coding examples are also found on Springer websites.

The introduction to the development of WS in Java presents the WebSphere Studio Workbench and Eclipse.org. WebSphere SDK (WSDK), the Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK), and Apache SOAP 2.3 are described with some caveats regarding known flaws. This is followed by JAX-RPC and Apache Axis, definitions, an introduction to WS for J2EE and JSR 109 and the WSDK Toolkit.

At this point, starting on page 259, the first example or case in The Case Study is considered --- all the prior pages having been dedicated to technical information to bring the reader up to speed. The authors refer to the example as a "sample" and it is, of course, a simulation where the case problem is run on the WS model being described so the reader can learn how to do it later in real-life. More precisely it is a training simulation testing (with some debugging) of the solution provided by the authors....the author's terminology will be used here.

The case scenario involves several fictitious insurance companies. In terms of the Performance System Spectrum, this scenario deals with the Men-Machine-Men model with Men being Internal Users and the Machine processing risk and fraud management matters. Business logic requirements are considered and "The Great Debate" over Apache Soap or JAX-RPC occurs, followed by configuring and building the sample. To build RPC/Encoded Services for Java the bottom-up and top-down approaches are reviewed. There is a discussion of building EJB (Enterprise Java Beans) WS with Apache SOAP, and using the WS Wizard. The process of exploring and modifying generated files is described. Building EJB WS with JAX-RPC and JSR 109 follows, In addition, exploring generated server side files, updating the project build paths, modifying generated files, and testing the deployed service are briefly delineated.

The reader is encouraged to build RPC/encoded services from WSDL first creating WS from WSDL using Apache SOAP and then testing the WS client. There is also the process of creating WS from WSDL using JAX-RPC/JSR 109 and updating the WSDL document and installing the SOAP Router, and finally testing the WS. A section is devoted to programmatic access to WSDL, using the WSDL4J toolkit, testing the JWSDL application and creating JWSDL clients with JAX-RPC and JSR 109. The reader learns to use WS-Inspection to build service indices from Java and also with Apache Soap and to configure WSIL4J.. There many excellent figures illustrating this part of the simulation. At this point, the text moves ahead to the use of UDDI.

There are discussions of UDDI access from Java and browsers, using UDDI with Apache SOAP and also with JAX-RPC and JSR 109, using other Web Services bindings, creating a document/literal Service from WSDL and a document/literal Service Client. A secton is dedicated to orchestrating Web Services and use of the Process Editor. The reader learns about using attachments with SOAP, using SOAP headers and finally exporting the completed sample. While space is assigned to finding more information, there isn't any for FAQ which could have been useful at this stage. Some System Administrators have argued that constructing the application in this chapter was the easy part. The next stage deals with implementing it in a production environment and might be viewed as more difficult.

Chapter 5 presents The Operational Perspective which the authors have truncated to 79 pages and rely on the experience of the reader to fill in some technical gaps. There are many specific references to coding samples in .zip format on Springer websites. This chapter deals with the system architecture hosting the software and we are now deep inside the Machine in the Men-Machine-Men system --- and continually aware of Boulding's admonition: "....If this relation's good and stable, Then to predict we may be able. But if this fails us - heaven forbid, We'll be compelled to force the lid!..."

There is a discussion of topology, standalone topology, additional components,and clustered and managed topology. Reference is made to the Access Management Subsystem, load balancing and high availability support. At this point, the Case Study simulation of a fictitious insurance company continues and for the remaining pages is interspersed with tutorial information .

There are explanations of Deploying Web Services, the WebSphere Application Server, deployment and configuring the application server. There is information on JDBC configuration, JAAS authentication and Cloudscape, and restarting and testing the installation. Next comes Deploying Services, wsadmin, ANT; working on the private UDDI Registry, including configuring and adding WSDL documents to the UDDI Registry. Descriptions are provided for testing, clustering, and node agents; working with the IBM HTTP Server, starting, testing clusters, and finally cold standby.

Attention is given to Securing the WS Implementation: security threats, countermeasures, WS-Security, and future WS-Security extensions, Securing WS with HTTPS and SSL --- as the simulation continues. The chapter closes with the WS Gateway and how to configure it, deploying a WS to the Gateway, updating and client testing. Frequent mention is made of specific websites to support the simulation so the reader is not completely alone with just the text.

Chapter 6 is The Engagement Perspective of 27 pages and a typical reader would sense that the end is in sight!! This chapter reviews many technical points emphasized in the Case Study simulation and adds the following: Planning a WS Development Project, Outlining Requirements and High Level Design, Planning and Staffing, Running the Project, including testing and going live, Success Factors, Elements of Risk,lessons learned and design advice. There is a final look at the Case Study simulation.

The Future Perspective appears in Chapter 7. The authors briefly identify SOAP Version 1.2, WSDL Version 1.2, UDDI Version 3.0, and grid computing for the immediate future. The Semantic Web including RDF and OWL are mentioned and they provide mid- and long-term visions.

The chapter concludes with "Now enjoy the first project in which you apply and exploit this hot technology!"

There are rather complete coding steps, flowcharts, and screen displays in the boilerplate content of the Appendix including: Building the Case Study Policy Systems, Java to XML Mapping, and C# --- and 87 References for those who desire additional background.

As Castro-Leon in summarizing his IEEE Spectrum article said: "...the semantic Web's benefits won't be seen for some time; Web Services are here today...it will connect almost every island of data, software, and device on the planet..." The reviewer believes that this volume which introduces Web Services is a valuable asset in the drive to improve the Men-Machine-Men system which we call the Internet.

Leonard C. Silvern
Systems Engineering Laboratories
Clarkdale, AZ

I bought this book after having owned the editing program for about a year........and suffered all the heartache that can occur if you do not know what you are doing....including crashing Windows.....finally located this superb manual that is user friendly and written by a pro in the field. Since that time, I have produced several projects that are startlingly complex.......and am currently being PAID to produce VHS/DVD productions. A MUST BUY if you purchase Pinnacle Studio 8.

Well laid out and quite thorough. Really a must-have if you are new to Pinnacle Studio DV.

I've had this book for less than a day and it's already paid for itself. I bought Studio 8, which now has been updated to version 8.10 (eight point ten, not 1.0). I figured even if the book were good for the very first versions of Studio 8, OK. As soon as you open the book, you see that Jan refers to changes made as recently as v. 8.6; I was thrilled. This is a brand new book/edition. Studio 8 ships with a 258 page manual right out of the box, which is somewhat amazing for a piece of software like this, but admittedly, the manual is very remedial. This book, from the earliest pages, delves into some seriously useful components within Studio. I have a bunch of these Visual QS books; I'm always ammazed at the bang for the buck in every one of them, this one no exception.

This book is a MUST for anyone new to Pinnacle Studio. I bought the software thinking I could "figure it out on my own"...Not!
This book has saved me!

This book tries to sell itself on the photos of the GUI that you will be using. The photos are a bit small, but good enough when you really need them, which is rare, because the author does a wonderful job of explaining how Pinnacle works. I recieved the software with no documentation and within a few minutes of opening this book I was well on my way to creating DVDs out of some digital movies. The author does a great job explaining both the simple and the complex parts of the software. And refreshingly, the author actually offers opinions on better ways to do some tasks. This is a good buy for anyone using this software.

What is the internet?
How and when did it begin?
Where does the network go?
Who originally thought of the concept?
Why is the internet useful and necessary?
Was Al Gore involved?

All these questions and more (minus the Al Gore one) are in The Pocket Guide To The Internet.

From ISPs to Packets, from AOL to telnet, and emoticons to netiquette, it's all present. There's a wealth of knowledge in every chapter, and the steps are slow enough for all. In fact, many of even the most novice users of the Internet will find much of the information mundane.

The book provides page after page of helpful information, providing a multitude of web addresses, acronyms, and definitions that, if anything, provid a sort of printed dictionary/encyclopedia about the internet.

This is a great resource for someone starting at ground zero with no knowledge whatsoever.

The "concept" of the Net is very important for the uninitiated. Your zeroing in on how the Internet should be viewed in the mind's eye is excellent. It's the idea or the "vision" of the over-all system as a "place" that is expanding its own boundaries in all directions gives your readers a sense of the sheer "enormity" of it all. And yet, all of it is reachable by a simple wire with a tiny, plastic push-in-and-click wall plug!! Marvelous. Robert M. Jackson, Jr.

I'm about half way through your book. In fact I'm on page 148 beginning Web Culture. I have found your book to be very informitive. Was very interested in the section on Gopher. Tried to get information on swollen joints, but reread and found that I needed to use WWW and Exite to pull it up. As I read your book I try the new reading out on my computer. Again thanks for the information.

Al Witte

I recently bought your paperback (The Pocket Guide to the I'Net) at the local Wal-Mart. Of course I was skeptical, since I've read or scanned through a dozen how-to books and intro-to books in my endeavours to learn better and train better.

But ... something about your style engaged me. So I bought the book. Halfway through it I think I know what it is I like about your text ... you're an Internet teacher who agrees with *me*!

I was talking with Wendy Green last week (literally talking, not virtually) and described my reaction to your book. She encouraged me to drop you a line. She says you lurk on the misc.writing newsgroup from time to time and she recognized your name. (What a high-traffic newsgroup!)

I webmaster for my company (www.ag.org) and am also responsible to train anybody in our midst how to understand and navigate the 'Net. For a good part of the last year I lectured to our local Internet users' group and now moonlight at a local cybercafe teaching Internet classes for paying customers. So, my plate is full and I'm happy to find material which so nicely augments my own presentations!

For a while I struggled with the relative worth of helping people understand this beast. Especially when they're *paying* to do so! After all, these people just want to know how to send email and 'surf the Web', why should I waste time talking about its military roots for goodness sake?

So, if for no other reason, I appreciate your book for the affirmation I've found there. Of course, I don't *always* agree with your presentation or your choice of wording, but then who agrees with *anybody* one hundred percent? I can't argue with the facts of your text, though, you have certainly done your research! (I only wish it was footnoted! ) At heart I am a teacher and no matter what I do or where I'm at that's likely the role I've fallen into. From one teacher to another: you done good. (Of course, I'm sure you know that! The royalties should speak well enough!)

I bought your book 'Pocket Guide to the Internet' (Pocket Books) a couple of months back here in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and enjoyed it greatly. It was a great introduction to the Net. Thought provoking and nicely written. I continue to use it as a reference.

The fact that everyone uses the web in some way or another, this is a good book to have. I am a computer junkie and this book definitely kept my head afloat. But I highly recommend you read "A Branded World" by Michael Levine. This author really knows what he's talking about. The next time a company hands out memos to its employees, make sure "A Branded World" is on the top of the page!

Bob really knows what he is talking about. He gives a lot of wonderful easy to read tips on how to get your name recognized on the web. He is very clever & witty and fun to read. I recommend you get a copy now.

The Internet offers a lot of "get rich quick" schemes, and advice based on 20th-century advertising techniques. However, what worked in the past century and before the Internet, is not working now. From "Cluetrain" to "Gonzo Marketing," there's ample proof of that.

But, if you're self-employed and/or building your online identity... how do you start? And, if you've been online for awhile but you're somehow missing the boat--or at least your audience--what do you do without a corporate advertising budget and webmaster/advisors to help you?

The answer is simple: You get this book. And read it. I've read Chapter Two at least ten times, and I'm still making notes about what I'm changing on my own website (online since 1995, and boy-oh-boy have I made mistakes! *sigh*).

Baker's books are not for wimps. And, they're not the sitcom version of business, where you spend a few days creating a by-the-numbers clone of others' websites, and then sit back expecting income to flood in like clockwork.

Instead of being a book that you read, say, "Oh, that made some good points," and then put on a shelf to collect dust, this is a book that you'll read, re-read, and keep close to hand. Baker's book is information-packed. There is no way that you'll learn it all in one reading, or even two.

This is easily in the top five books that everyone who is (or wants to be) in business online MUST own. Sure, you can read the sample chapters at Baker's website, or take this book out of the library, but it contains too much important advice for that. And, you'll refer to it often, as well.

Buy this book. Roll up your sleeves and do what he says. It's how to succeed on- and offline, in the 21st century. It's not your parents' business era anymore. Learn the new rules in this book, and give yourself a genuine chance for success.

Baker's information would be cheap at ten times the price; it's already helped me to increase the daily hits at one of my websites from 500/day to over 800/day. And, I'm still on Chapter Three!

I haven't made it past chapter 3 and I have already read a wealth of helpful information on branding your business name and branding tools. The author provides a detailed, step-by-step guide to branding and marketing techniques one can use both online and offline. This book is a must read for first-time start-ups and entreprenuers.

This is a great book for those of you who want to make a name for yourself on-line. Bob has an abundance of ideas to get you started and to keep you going as you explore the ways to market yourself online. Bob has a very witty and humorous way to keep you interested in what he has to say. I think Mr. Baker is on the cutting edge of where the future of online marketing is headed. I highly recommend this book.

Feature Driven Development (FDD) is a highly disciplined approach to software development. Because it requires so much discipline, it's not really something you can pick up from a post or two on someone's blog. You really need depth of information. I attended a seminar by one of the originators of the methods, Jeff De Luca. This book, while not recommended by Mr. De Luca, does seem to track very well with the information he presented. If you can't afford to attend one of his seminars, but you're still interested in a practical method for streamlining development and helping to ensure a repeatable process, you can certainly start learning from this book. It may not hold all the answers, but it does provide a very solid foundation from which to build.

I have been doing feature driven development for over 3 years. It is an effective, efficient process. Many times I wished that I had a definative source on that topic. Finally one has arrived.

The three part approach to the book makes it easy for you to find the topics you need to get your job done. Part 2 defines each of the processes in detail. Chapter 5, which covers reporting/tracking progress gives a good feel for the control you have in producing project deliverables, and reporting on the true progress of the project. Realistic, acurate reporting.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is a slave to their process, or even those that are new to process. This one works!

Since there already three very complete customer reviews, I just wanted to add a couple of points for people who, like me, haven't used this approach to project management before.

The authors stress that feature-driven development, as they describe it, is intended for a very specific type of project. There's nothing new in the book, except the way the authors have combined tried-and-true techniques to handle very large business application development in a consistent and low-risk manner. The smallest headcount that could justify the overhead is about twenty, although it could scale up almost indefinitely. Palmer and Johnson describe their methodology as light but, on a scale of five (heavy) to one (agile), FDD rates about a four.

The second point is that the techniques used assume very heavy customer involvement and clearly understood business rules. For example, the original project that inspired the book was a banking system in Asia. The procedures wouldn't be well-suited to innovative product development in a competitive environment. This is no alternative to extreme programming.

Lastly, the methods used aim to get good results from inexperienced employees. Despite a reminder that highly-ranked programmers are better value than entry-level personnel, this type of project often relies on an army of tightly-controlled programmers, led by a few experienced team leaders. Although the authors differentiate the FDD organization from the old Chief Surgeon model, this is still basically just a variant on that theme.

There are also more than a few hints that the book is not intended solely, or even primarily, for US readers. We are abjured to speak in English and leaders are advised to use a soccer whistle to control meetings. As beautifully as the authors describe how to divide up a large project by feature (and it is beautifully clear and simple), some of the advice in handling personnel leads me to hesitate before recommending it without reservation to every potential reader, which is the criterion Amazon requires for a 5-star rating.

Feature Driven Development is a lightweight iterative software development process promoted by TogetherSoft that occupies the middle ground between heavyweight, high ceremony processes like RUP and lightweight programming-focused processes such as Extreme Programming.

This book is packed with good advice for developers and those involved in managing software development, and is clearly written by people with real world experience. The authors do a good job of explaining the issues in software development and how FDD helps address them.

The book is highly readable and should be accessible to those who currently have a limited understanding of formal software development processes. One of the themes carried through the book is an ongoing dialogue between the two authors and several other persons, including the project manager of a software project for a car dealership that is worked through in the book. At first I found this dialogue distracting, I guess because they were initially dealing with material I am already familiar with, but by the end of the book, I looked forward to these sections, and felt they gave the book an overall coherence.

FDD is most radical, in its approach to management (reporting), by dispensing with Gannt charts and estimates of task completeness (most people are aware of the 90% complete, 90% of the time, syndrome), replacing them with measuring features complete (as in 100% complete!) as a percentage of all features to be built. I am familiar with why Gannt charts and Microsoft Project style planning doesn't work for software projects, but the book would have benefited from a more detailed discussion of what will be the hardest part of FDD for many to accept. The book's only real fault is several digressions into software quality and online help, that it was hard to see the relevance of.

I recommend this book to people, including managers, who want to understand why we need software development processes and the issues involved in selecting one. The book, naturally enough, points out the issues with widely used processes such as RUP - too heavyweight, and XP - questionable scalability, and these criticisms are IMO largely valid. The book explains in a straightforward way, how FDD works and how it satisfies all the main requirements of a development process, especially scalability, manageability and getting the domain model (shape) right as early as possible, minimizing the need to refactor later.

The Feature-Driven Development (FDD) method proposed and described in this book is elegant in that it combines simplicity and power, and effective because it will deliver applications that support business requirements.

Although the approach is based on object-oriented development, and the book is focused towards that approach, it can be refactored into function- and procedure-oriented programming environments. Moreover, the book is written to fit within agile methods, but the approach can be fit to any development life cycle approach. This is because the focus is on features, which translate into what the business *needs* from an application. This is where elegance and simplicity comes in. By focusing on the features needed applications are less apt to be 'gold-plated' with unnecessary features that developers may think is nice, but add little business value. In this respect the time to deliver is shortened and what is delivered is going to reflect genuine business requirements.

The power of FDD comes from the highly structured approach that i based on the ETVX (entry-task-validation-exit) framework. Entry criteria is typical: requirements, authority to proceed and other 'quality gates' that must be passed before a development project is initiated. The tasks follow a five-step process as follows:
(1) Develop the model, including scope, validation in the form of walkthroughs, and peer reviews. The approach described in the book assumes an object model, but in a non-OO setting this can be realigned to first cut system diagramming in the form of block- and data flow-diagrams,and first-cut design.
(2) Build the features list. The OO approach is domain partitioning based on the model; in a non-OO setting this is where the team maps functional requirements to features.
(3) Plan by feature. This step, in my opinion, shows FDD to be a legitimate software engineering method. Feature prioritization, dependency analysis and effort estimation occur here. Done properly this step will make the difference between success or failure. I do have one issue with the book at this point: the prioritization is done by the technical team - it should be done with the business stakeholders.
(4) Design by feature. This is an iterative step that feeds back into step 1 (build the model) wherein class ownership is determined and the original model is refined based on the design approach. In non-OO environments this would loop back into the first-cut design and trigger trade-off analysis and design refinement.
(5) Build by feature. This is where the application is actually developed on a feature-by-feature basis within the context of the defined architecture (model).

Verification is accomplished using traditional methods. The authors introduce what they call 'feature-based testing' which is no different than product test (also called functional qualification testing, and in some circles, acceptance testing). Verification procedures are thoroughly covered in the book, further adding to the software engineering approach that is incorporated into FDD. Exit criteria is when the sponsors accept the system.

What makes this book important is that is gives a straightforward approach that is based on deliverables (features) within a process context (ETVX). This approach is consistent with best practices in software project management and has the additional benefit of assuring that what gets designed and built is what the customer needs. Bolt FDD onto your favorite methodology and you'll probably see quality increase, and costs and time to deliver decrease.

For quantification of models, queuing theory is one of the oldest variants, used for simple first feelings with the processes. This book provides the theory of random arrive processes, probability and all kind of queues. The reader is introduced in single queues like m/m/1 and learns how to calculate and forecast the most important statistics as a start. Later on more complex queue systems are explained in detail all with graphs, simple formulas to calculate and enough text to understand the formulas and steps of the writer. At the moment the theory of the single queues cannot solve the problem, the writer uses some PASCAL procedures. At that moment it looks more like a black box to me, but I am sure the writer knows what he is doing!

A superb guide that manages a realistic introduction without terrible challenges to higher mathematics anxiety. My biggest complaint is one of omission -- it deals with networking at the data link level, and doesn't get into more modern networking.

This is a very good book on queuing theory and applications. I have read or looked at dozens of similar books, but find this to be one of the best. ...

There is also a UK/European edition of this book, which is, at the time of writing, in stock with McGraw-Hill Europe.

The UK edition of Practical Queueing Analysis is available, and can be ordered from McGraw-Hill in the US (609-426-5793). The only difference between the USA and UK editions is a diskette that was shrink-wrapped with the US edition. Contact Mike Tanner if you need the diskette.