Computer Science Books

I suggest you correct the title of this book you got it as "Digital Designing in the Programmable Logic Device". Shame on you. I am just starting to read this book so you should here from me.

Salam

The correct title is:
Digital Designing With Programmable Logic Devices

This is possibly the best book I have purchased on this subject.
It contains a thorough coverage of logic design with Finite State Machines. Examples include various
Programmable Logic Devices from PAL16L8 to 10R8 and even ROMS.

Introduction to micro code and CISC. Address Bus Decoding is covered towards the end as well.

All in all a wonderful book - and found just in time given my interest in digital design. I am probably
going to read it a second time, before delving into my own projects.

In short you should come away from this confident enough to purchase a CPLD/FPGA board and
start experimenting.

I am ordering this Quest book. However, I am listening to a current interview on New Dimensions Radio and have been to Steve's WebSite; so I have a good idea of the content of the book.

I am interested in writing a book on spiritual and psychic development for individuals and society related to the Web and Internet and other current communication technologies, so I think this book would be quite relevant.

Two book I have just read are probably quite related:

Donald P. Dulchinos
Neurosphere: The Convergence of Evolution, Group Mind, and the Internet

Jacques Vallee (Hardcover - Jul 2003)
The Heart of the Internet: An Insider's View of the Origin and Promise of the On-Line Revolution

And somewhat in the past:

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet by Katie Hafner (Paperback - Jan 21, 1998)
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff (Paperback - Feb 28, 2006) -

As a teacher of middle schoolers, I am amazed when watching kids use their cell-phones and other assorted gizmos. Teenagers, more than most of us, have an insatiable need to connect with others--literally and virtually--it is a constant in their lives. Steven's book helped me put their behavior (as well as my own and others) into a much larger frame--one that connects the deepest human needs (and the ancient ways of meeting these) with today's technology.

An acknowledgement, I am Steven's sister-in-law!

Tinder did an outstanding job on this text. The book uses strict mixed rail logic conventions. The text covers Boolean logic, combinatorial logic, synchronous an asynchronous FSM design. I don't know why this book is out of print. It is an excellent text for a student or a reference for a professional.

Tinder did an outstanding job on this text. The book uses strict mixed rail logic conventions. The text covers Boolean logic, combinatorial logic, synchronous an asynchronous FSM design. I don't know why this book is out of print. It is an excellent text for a student or a reference for a professional.

This book demonstrates the state of the art in digital government. Rather than writing about what e-government could be, the authors take a reasoned look at the topic. The book is therefore neither overly optimistic nor is it hand wringingly critical. The international dimension is handled nicely in several chapters that extend the analysis to countries outside the US.

The book can easily become a standard reference for those who study e-government.

Pavlichev and Garson provide a beneficial and thorough treatment of electronic/digital government, examining technical, management and policy issues with both theory and practice. For both students and practitioners of electronic/digital government, Pavlichev and Garson offer an excellent overview of how we got here, where we are, where we want to go and the challenges along the way.

Steve Holden
Assistant Professor of IS
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

"Digital Play" critically analyzes the video and computer game industry and theorizes about its significance in contemporary society. The book is somewhat unusual in that it is the collaborative product of three authors, but the writing seems to blend perfectly and makes for a consistent and high-quality read. The end product is an accessible and entertaining book that could serve to introduce a wide audience to critical postmodern analysis.

Nick Dyer-Witheford of "Cyber-Marx" fame is one of the authors. Mr. Dyer-Witheford's influence is discernable in at least several sections where the post-Marxist themes of corporate control versus freedom that are evident in "Cyber-Marx" are used to very good effect. First, he deflates the wildly optimistic claims of techno-utopians such as Alvin Toffler, reminding us that technology remains in service to corporate profits and therefore narrows and limits the possibility of "choice, interactivity and empowerment" that digital games purportedly offer. Second, Mr. Dyer-Witheford points to piracy and hacking as evidence that freedom from corporate control and a return to "play" in its purest sense may yet remain possible.

The authors contend that video games are worthy of serious study because they represent the "ideal-type" postmodern commodity. So whereas the automobile is closely associated with the "industrial capitalism" of the Fordist era, the video game embodies the "information capitalism" of today's "perpetual innovation" society.

The ideal-type commodity does not mean that it avoids crisis, however. The authors posit that the accelerating "circuits" of technology, culture and marketing that drive postmodern society in general and the video game business in particular "can be broken or come into contradiction" in numerous ways. The authors go on to critique each of these three circuits and produce many pages of very thoughtful analysis.

For example, an interesting aspect of the industry that is often overlooked is manufacturing and the international division of labor. Electronic game equipment is often produced by proletariat labor in the poor countries of the South for the benefit of relatively wealthy consumers in the North. The authors point out that the game industry, like most capitalist enterprises that exploit the so-called free trade system in search of higher profits, will find it difficult to develop new markets for its products until it is willing to pay its third-world factory workers enough money to stimulate demand. In fact, the authors state that corporate managers should not be too surprised when intellectual property gets pirated by people who feel that they have been cheated by the economic system.

But probably the most stinging criticism concerns the close connection of games with Cold War research and development. The "militarized masculinity" that characterizes so many games originated here and has been perpetuated by corporate marketing in pursuit of profits. But the authors point out that if the industry fails to find successful alternative game genres and graphic violence continues to escalate, future interest in gaming may be jeopardized even as the potential damage to children exposed to such psychic intensity remains unknown.

In short, "Digital Play" is highly recommended to everyone interested in deconstructing the multi-faceted and increasingly fantastical world that has been brought to us by the "military and entertainment" complex.

Books on electronic gaming and video game culture predominantly concentrate on the history of the industry or on nostalgic returns to retro gaming, often punctuated with coloured photos and screenshots. Digital Play is one of the few books currently available that provides an insightful look into the social, cultural, and economic relationships between game players, and the engaging game texts, technologies, and market forces of the information age. As interactive gaming continues to establish itself as a major global media business, it becomes increasingly important for us to employ a critical perspective of the blossoming industry. Kline, Witheford, and Peuter's Digital Play couldn't have arrived at a better time.

Digital Play is cleverly divided into three segments, each focusing on different bearings of interactive gaming but effectively converging into a single conclusive "coda." Discussion begins with a theoretical approach to analyzing gaming and its industry as it relates to circuits of interactivity including culture, technology, and marketing. Theoretical concepts collected from media theorists Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams, are successfully transferred to the medium of the videogame. What follows is a look at the existence of interactive gaming in a post-Fordist, and postmodern society of information technology and hyper-reality. This facilitates the understanding of historical circumstances of developing circuits of interactivity outlined in earlier chapters. While the first segment may seem theoretically and linguistically intense, it remains deeply involving and is ever mindful of the topic at hand: video games.

The second segment of Digital Play covers the historical background of games from their early beginnings in the military-industrial complex to the relentless corporate firefight known to many as the "console wars." However, unlike previous electronic gaming texts, the historical accounts are retold stressing the importance of technology, culture, and marketing. Digital Play thus provides a fresh and extremely entertaining parade through electronic gaming's past. What readers may find most absorbing in this stretch are the political-economic struggles endured by the gaming companies (Atari for example) who pioneered the industry only to meet with fierce competition and an unstable market for interactive entertainment.

The initial chapters of Digital Play concentrated on technology and communication studies, and the following chapters zeroed-in on history and marketing practices. However, this theoretical triad could not be complete without the presence of one more area of study: game culture as an industry and practice. In a chapter entitled "Workers and Warez" the authors examine gaming technologies on global levels of production and consumption, such as the exploitation of off-shore labourers and increasing levels of hacking, console "modding", and software piracy. Subsequent chapters provide studies in branding and licensing, violence and gender, and my personal favourite...political economy. Chapter 12 assembles the major themes of Digital Play, suggesting that Electronic Arts' best-selling game "The Sims" can be viewed as a microcosm of our own capitalist society, wrought with consumerist ideology. While we manipulate the digital Barbie dolls of our virtual technology, so too does a system of communication technologies, global enterprise, and postmodern digital culture manipulate our symbolic relationship with the logic of a capitalist system.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Digital Play and wouldn't hesitate to purchase any game-related books that any of the authors might publish in the future. Digital Play offers an engaging critical look at the gaming world's industry, technology, and culture, and should not be ignored by those looking to study interactive games from an academic viewpoint or by those simply looking for enjoyable reading.

Digital signal processing is a tough area of study for two reasons. First, there's lots of math involved and you need more than just knowledge of it - you need a certain degree of intuition and insight in order to learn DSP successfully. On the other hand, mathematical proofs are not nearly enough for good implementation of the algorithms.

Because of how computers work, different ways of computing things give us different performance ratings. The simplest example is using FFT instead of DFT. The concept is the same, but the amount of computational power it saves is unprecedented. Therefore, you need to know not only how to derive a few methods for calculating different filter responses, but also how to implement them, so they take the least mathematical operations. Once you start using MATLAB for serious and large-scale applications, it becomes very obvious.

If you're the practical type (as opposed to a purely theoretical type) and want (or need) to know how to make stuff not just work, but also work well, this book will get you started in no time!

This book is very readable and is chock-full of examples, sample code and explanations of DSP concepts. I think the best way to read it is to start with Chapters 1-2, which give an introduction to DSP and an overview of MatLab. Then, immediately follow this with Chapter 10, which covers applications. Subsequent chapters can be read as needed.

I read the book and found it very easy to follow. I am interested in the subject because

I am a retired air force pilot, and the concept of disaster management is a lifetime experience.

The book gives a very wide and general idea about the subject of disaster management, it gives a generic disaster management plan, then some specific plans for the telecom industry.

The case studies cover a wide range of applications. I found them very useful

I recommend this book for every manager, even those outside the IT profession

This book is written to technical as well as non-technical readers. Thus the text balances the technical issues with the administrative, financial, and managerial issues. This theme is punctuated by:- - Presentation of a thorough and detailed discussion of the theories of disaster management - An integrated use of real-world examples throughout the text - Use of feature articles material from leading telecommunications companies & common carriers, highlighting the issues surrounding disaster & crisis management, in a broad spectrum of telecommunications organizations - Case studies illustrating how actual disasters were detected, studied, confronted & successfully controlled (or otherwise) - Lessons learned from the different examples & case studies presented The book explains the different theories of disaster management, and after that discuss its applications in the telecommunications, Broadcasting and computer systems. Thus it will be useful to all those who are concerned with disaster management as a subject. The book relies heavily on case studies to explain the ideas presented in the general presentation. A special section is devoted to the presentation of 12 real-world case studies, in the fields of telecommunications, Radio/TV broadcasting and computer systems in addition to a step-by-step solution of another two case studies. Yet throughout the book 12 other case studies, about disasters that I have personally encountered and managed, are presented

The main idea behind the stress given to case studies is to make the reader think about the case, and then to arrive at an understanding of the WHYs and HOWs, before reading the analysis. This concept is presented in the following format:- 1- Background Information: (Present state) 2- Problem Faced:(Symptoms & Early warning signs) 3- Action Taken:(assuming no previous knowledge of Disaster Management) 4- Discussion: Given in the form of questions that leads the reader logically & systematically to discover what went wrong & what should have been done. 5- Analysis: This presents, in a way, the most probable course of action that should have been taken & a clarification of the cause of the trouble.

Finally, this book documents the experience that I gained through working for more than 40 years in the field with the United nations (ITU), telecommunications, Broadcasting and computer organizations, where I faced a lot of disasters that I had to detect, identify, analyze, and solve. Most of the time I was successful thank God, while in some cases I was not that fortunate. It is hoped that this book will enable the reader to profit from my experience, and avoid those places where I stumbled.

Deep math meets computer science over
a hugely diverse range of topics:
an amazing book!

The title seems to be a play on the "Probabilistic Method,"
a better-known cousin of the Discrepancy Method. The book
covers an unusual mix of topics, and is very well-written.

I have read this book and find it to be one of the most comprehensive books on the subject. It develops the subject very gradually and provides solid material instead of mere verbosity. It can very well be used as a text book. I recommend it as the first reading on the subject to technical as well as non-technical readers.

I wish this book had a Web site where the information was available live and up to date. I will recommend the author to attempt this.

Great book of reviewing e-commerce systems, architecture, and applications. Can be used as a reference.

Dr. Casey, a leading researcher and professor in teaching reading, presents a compelling argument for the implementation of technology in classrooms as early as pre-school. While this is not a revolutionary idea these days, the approach she advocates is. Many schools still use the computer as a glorified typewriter or calculator, or as an electonic "ditto sheet." Not so here. With the help of colleagues throughout the world, Dr. Casey has studied real-life situations in which children, who might otherwise fail and join the ever-growing ranks of the functionally illiterate, not only learn to read, but experience the joy of success. This is accomplished through the use of the "talking computer", a learning machine which gives immediate feedback to children in all learning modalities, visual, kinesthetic, aural, and oral. Many practical problems are addressed, such as funding, and the resistance to change in the "corporate culture" of many schools. A helpful appendix ennumerates online sources, software and other technology resources. Specific advice for teachers is given in the form of a checklist. My only disappointment with the book is a lack of illustrations; this is no doubt attributable to the publisher's budget restraints. I highly recommend this book as a starting point for school districts and staffs, as well as parent advocacy groups. Many state school boards would also be well-advised to heed Dr. Casey's words.

Dr. Casey presents compelling anecdotes of the real experiences of many children who have been transformed by the use of the "talking computer." That's what makes this book stand out from the pack of other comupter-in-the-classroom works. She espouses an even higher technology which replaces and surpasses the use of computers as alternate work papers. The word-sound connection, which has been proven to be of paramount importance in several recent studies, is experienced in realtime with visual, kinesthetic and aural feedback. Not content to stop with her own observation and experience, which is impressive, she collaborates with colleagues from several countries in Europe to prove the efficacy of her methods across cultural and language barriers. The outstanding results should raise some eyebrows, not only among classroom teachers, but in the hallowed halls of administration, and at the state government level. Many current problems such as bilingual education, increasing functional illiteracy and dropouts could be easily solved by the methods presented here. A useful appendix ennumerates websites, online sources, software and reviews. Highly recommended for those dedicated to the belief that Johnny CAN read, if given the right tools.