Electronics Books

I'm a fan of Turkle, so I just loved it. It's just one of the first deep books written about human-computer interaction.

A classic in the field of human/computer interaction, it suffers a bit from its age (although I was delighted to read about the way children interacted with Merlin and Simon, given that I was a child who had interacted with both of the above). Children are so much more saturated with computers and computer technology than when the book was written, that I wonder how the observations will have changed.

_The Second Self_ is divided into three parts:

Part I: Growing Up with Computers: The Animation of the Machine
Part II: The New Computer Cultures: The Mechanization of the Mind
Part III: Into a New Age

This is "the" book that described the true origin of "hacking" as in "pushing the edge of the envelope" by writing a complex program in six lines of code instead of ten. This is a really superior piece of work about computer cultures and the people that belong to them. It is a wonderfully readable book with magnificent insights into the psychology of the young people at the bleeding edge of the computer frontier.

Update of 31 May 08 to add links:
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN: LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Information Payoff: The Transformation of Work in the Electronic Age
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books)
The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Has it already been twenty years since the first edition of this book came out?! When it did so, it was soon regarded as a classic. The intervening years have done nothing to diminish that assessment. Turkle has updated it to form this second edition.

By and large, her analysis in 1984 proved on the mark. As computers have improved in power, and become smaller and more portable, their users tend to identify with them. And here it should be said that the cellphones of today are considered, and are indeed, computers in the context of this text. Certainly, a typical cellphone has a raw computational capacity exceeding the personal computers of 1984.

To some readers, the most puzzling thing may be why some users so identify with their computers, or half-jokingly, attribute personalities to them. There seems to be some innate urge in many people for this.

Needless to say, suppose we project out another 20 years. The trend is for more such behaviour. The sophistication and personalisation possible in those future mobile machines makes this inevitable. And this is even NOT assuming any breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, which might endow the devices with true personalities.

Turkle's seminal text examines the social implications of our increasingly computer-suffused lives. With a strong emphasis on individual interactions with computers, this ethnography describes an emerging post-modern computer culture, and goes on to interpret it in philosophical terms. A bit utopian, very smart, acts as a bit of a pre-quel to her recent work, Life on the Screen

A few years ago (I'm told) Bill Gates called all of the developers together and told them that the big thing it was necessary for Microsoft to do was to implement strong security systems in their mainstream products. I don't know if this is true, but the biggest changes in their 2003 series of products is greatly increased security emphasis.

Exchange Server is no exception. This book is oriented around how to get the most out of Exchange Server while protecting the security of the messaging system. It is written by a network security expert who worked closely with the Exchange Server development team. Published by Microsoft Press, this can be viewed as the definitive book on the subject.

Good book! I'm not an Exchange admin, but I need to understand what the issues are in Exchange and Outlook security. I found the book very helpful in a couple of ways:
* covers 5.5. and 2K, even though the title says 2003
* covers life cycle issues like archiving and compliance
* covers Active Directory and Certificate issues
I was impressed that the book managed to combine enough detail to be valuable to technical users, with clear enough descriptions of the issues to make sense to non-techies.

In today's environment of spam, virus, and bad things in general, knowing how to protect yourself is a very valuable commodity.
Paul has managed to condense everything you need down to a nutshell, okay, maybe more like an acorn tree. But it's all in there.
Chapter 20 should be a must-read for anyone in messaging. It goes over some of the legal aspects of you and your messaging system. Most administrators don't realize the possible litigation that they can get themselves into. And sure, your company will protect you. When it comes to a 10 million dollar lawsuit or an employee, who's going to get the shaft?!
Ever worry about what permissions have been set on something? Take a look at Appendix B for an in-depth guide.

I admit to a certain degree of bias, being that I'm the author and all, but this really *is* the only book that takes a comprehensive approach to every aspect of Exchange security. The book covers physical and operational security, patch management, end-to-end transport security using IPsec and TLS, client-to-client security with S/MIME, and even security issues related to mobile devices like BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile smartphones. Sample chapters are available from a variety of places, including the book's companion website at e2ksecurity.com.

If you're going to pick up a book on Microsoft Exchange Server security, this is *the* book for you. Great and comprehensive coverage on everything to do with Microsoft Exchange Server from one of the foremost Exchange Security experts in the industry. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is seriously interested in understanding what's entailed in Exchange-related security, including some ground-breaking content on compliance (Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, SEC, etc.) and legislation pertaining to e-mail ... which alone is well worth the price of the book! Highly recommended!!

This is definitely a book for systems administrators. You won't learn the basics about sendmail, or get an introduction. This book is for folks who generally know sendmail, but are having specific issues with it.

The first chapter has a lot of very specific fixes for a bunch of operating system specific issues. After that the solutions become a bit more general.

The two standout chapters are chapter four, on relaying, and chapter six on spam filtering. Both of these have great introductions and in-depth techincal descriptions, with effective graphics, covering the topics.

I recommend this book for systems administrators and for people actively using with sendmail.

The first killer application of the Internet was email. For over twenty years, the most common program used to handle this was sendmail, written by Eric Allman. Over this time, sendmail has become a fully fledged language, with a very inelegant syntax. To learn how this, you need the book "Sendmail" by Costales and Allman.

The basic problem is that twenty years of ever increasing complexity in mail handling has created concomitant complexity in sendmail. For system adminstrators, the sendmail configuration files are probably the most complicated things they have to understand and maintain.

The rub is that most sysadmins have many duties, and little time to thoroughly read the above book. What is needed is a crib sheet, that lets you quickly solve very common sendmail configuration issues. Wherein the need for this book. Hunt takes a pragmatic approach. He tells you enough to handle these common issues. Sometimes, this comes at a slight cost. For example, he never really fully explains the the sendmail class notation. For a rigorous explanation, you still need Allman's book. But as a practical matter, you probably not that curious about the notation anyway. Hunt's approach may solve your problems quicker!

An interesting aspect of this Cookbook is that it shows the recent evolution of sendmail, as seen in the subtitle at the top of the cover, "Spam-Fighting". Sysadmins who dealt with sendmail from 5 years ago or earlier will recall nothing pertaining to antispam techniques.

But just as email was the first killer application, the second killer application was the browser, starting in 1992-3. The third killer application was spam, often viewed via the second application. In the last 5 years, spam has grown amazingly. So much so that it has been debated on the floors of the US Parliament! It has gotten to the point that some alarmists are even claiming that this third killer app might be crippling the first app!

Well, this Cookbook has several sections, including an entire chapter, focussed on various antispam techniques, like procmail parsing, or hooking up to Real Time Block Lists like spamhaus.org. The efficacy of such methods may vary widely, but you do get a choice. Though none of these currently appear to offer a truly effective countermeasure. You are still getting tons of spam, aren't you?

Perhaps some genius in the not too distant future can help us!

Great book, exactly what I needed. I'm pretty good with Sendmail, but there is nothing like just looking up an issue and following through a solution. I would recommend this to anyone who works with Sendmail!

This book has something about sendmail for everyone.
I know sendmail very well, and have used it for years.

But even I and sendmail gurus I work with learned a lot.

this is a great book.

Working with sendmail can be very challenging at times; while the documentation for it is very complete, finding real-life use-cases can be tough and messing up a configuration is very easy. Fortunately the sendmail authors and community adopted the m4 language to help make building and managing sendmail configurations less painful (I remember having bad dreams about sendmail configuration language when I started learning it). Even with m4, understanding what goes where when and why in a sendmail configuration file can be a real challenge.

O'Reilly helped we mere mortals out tremendously with the publication of "Sendmail: The Definitive Guide," a book that helped demystify and clarify many of sendmail's inner-workings and configuration options. Even with this book, it was still hard to answer real-life use case questions, like how to enable SMTP AUTH for sendmail, how do I use LDAP with sendmail, how do I use sendmail to accept email for multiple domains in a virtual hosting environment, how do I use blackhole list services?

Enter "Sendmail Cookbook." This clear, easy to read, well-indexed book contains a wealth of useful recipies that make previously difficult to figure out tasks quite easy. The book is organized in typical Cookbook fashion; each chapter or section stands on it's own, and if it does require knowledge of other sendmail configuration topics, the section includes cross-references to other relevant recipies and references to appropriate sections in the "Sendmail: The Definitive Guide" book, which is a nice additional feature.

This cookbook starts with recipies that step the reader through building and installing sendmail, with sections on configuring the build so that sendmail compiles with SSL/STARTTLS support, LDAP support, and SASL support. Chapters that follow deal with everything from enabling and configuring SMTP AUTH, to securing sendmail itself, to controlling spam. Recipies use m4 whenever possible and only dip into the sendmail configuration language when necessary, another feature I found very impressive.

I own quite a few O'Reilly books; this is one of a small number that I enjoy just picking up and flipping to a random page and reading; I always find something that I either didn't know or had forgotten. I wish I had this book seven years ago when I was struggling to learn the basics of sendmail configuration and administration; I might have more hair left if I had! I highly recommend this book to anyone who works with sendmail, be that daily administration or occassional troubleshooting.

This book will save you time digging up newsgroups and mailing lists for answers regarding tuning sendmail. It's surprising to know after years of being a postmaster with a happy system I've never thought various info mentioned would help anticipate future mail problems. This will not only help you configure sendmail but understand what's going on inside it.

i never knew there was so much under the engine of sendmail.

sendmail Performance Tuning is a great book and a lot of help.

Nick Christenson delivers exactly what the title promises, all the way through this book. Every paragraph is completely on topic and packed with the sort of information that would be hard or impossible to find anywhere else. Furthermore, you know that unlike something scrounged off Usenet, you can trust this information thanks to Nick's considerable experience in the field, which he shares frequently.

I'd say this book provides a major strategic advantage to anyone whose business depends upon e-mail performance.

When I first picked this up I really didn't expect much. I expected that this would be a rather ordinary rehash of typical performance tuning advice. How much could you possibly have to say about sendmail specifically?

Boy, was I wrong. Nick Christensen has a lot to say about tuning mail systems. The attention to detail here is simply wonderful, and his clear writing style makes it enjoyable too.

You can learn a lot about sendmail here, but you'll also gain a deeper understanding of how complicated performance tuning really is; how seemingly unrelated factors can really affect performance. Nick covers it all- nothing left out, nothing glossed over.

If you are interested in sendmail, you'll want this book. If you are running any other Unix mail system you still will want it because much of the advice and discussion is relevant to other systems. In fact, f you are just interested in performance tuning on any system, this is a worthwhile read.

Eric Allman (the original author of sendmail) says "This book is great". Eric is wrong. This is much better than that. This is an impressive work, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly.

When I first picked this up I really didn't expect much. I expected that this would be a rather ordinary rehash of typical performance tuning advice. How much could you possibly have to say about sendmail specifically?

Boy, was I wrong. Nick Christensen has a lot to say about tuning mail systems. The attention to detail here is simply wonderful, and his clear writing style makes it enjoyable too.

You can learn a lot about sendmail here, but you'll also gain a deeper understanding of how complicated performance tuning really is; how seemingly unrelated factors can really affect performance. Nick covers it all- nothing left out, nothing glossed over.

If you are interested in sendmail, you'll want this book. If you are running any other Unix mail system you still will want it because much of the advice and discussion is relevant to other systems. In fact, f you are just interested in performance tuning on any system, this is a worthwhile read.

Eric Allman (the original author of sendmail) says "This book is great". Eric is wrong. This is much better than that. This is an impressive work, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly.

Great reference for Service Design for Six Sigma. Dr El-Haik and Mr. Roy have done a beautiful job of clearly outlining the methodology for DFSS while diving in depth into the critical tools. This is a must have for those who are doing DFSS for service applications.

Dr. Basem El-Haik and Dave Roy have delivered a tremendous research effort that will support the successful implementation of service focused DFSS for years to come. The book is organized into seventeen well structured chapters. The usual collection of references may also be used to gather source materials for additional study. This work is an extensive collection of topics relevant to service design and design optimization and forms an excellent referential basis for DFSS endeavors. The text is easy to read and understand and contains many examples for conceptreinforcement. An understanding of calculus and matrix math, while not a prerequisite, will be very helpful for certain sections of the book.
Congratulations to the authors for their excellent reference work on the science of design. It appears that this text is the culmination and integration of several important areas of research. The integration of the emerging tool called "Axiomatic Design" into most of the topics is a highlight of the text. El-Haik and Roy have published concepts that are unique to service design. I recommend this book to anyone who is serious about preemptive design and the integration of various design methodologies. I have not dsicovered such a comprehensive book for service design of six sigma. I started using this book for advanced experimental design and taguchi methods, but ultimately ended up understanding the complete roadmap for design of six sigma. The systems approach allows an enthusiast reader to start anywhere, without having to spend time refering back to earlier chapters. The relatively newer trends as TRIZ and axiomatic design have also been nicely dealt with.
Overall, this is a very nice and easy read book, with excellent and well defined examples. A must for everyone who wants a quick refresher on the design principles of six sigma.

This is one of the first Six Sigma books that provides a solid roadmap for Process Design. Good examples, limited jargon, solid tools, well written. I would highly recommed it to anybody involved in a process design.

Whether you are new to Six Sigma or are a seasoned Six Sigma Black Belt this book is a must read. The power of applying Design for Six Sigma in the Services arena can not be overstated where tangible results can be realized if Service products are designed that delight the end customer. This book does a great job presenting an easy to follow Service DFSS roadmap that introduces the powerful Six Sigma tools that will help ensure that a robust end product is designed. Also, struggle no more with Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as this book does a superb job of breaking it down and providing succinct instruction on how to get it right. Highly recommended!

This is a great reference book for DFSS principles in a transactional or service environment. The authors stay true to their focus on transactional processes and provide practical examples to guide the reader through the traditional tools such as QFD, TRIZ, Design Scorecards and DOE. They also manage to easily integrate Lean tools such as Value Stream Mapping and Waste Elimination into the overall process. It doesn't feel like a re-hashing of shop floor lean with the word "office" inserted in from time to time. The focus really is on defining the customers and the design challenges in a service/back office setting. Beyond the tools, there is also some great reference material for the entire roadmap of establishing a program including deployment strategies, training, and resource planning.

A superbly written book on fabrication of silicon integrated circuits.Chapter 2 provides a gentle yet fairly detailed introduction to the overall process and each item touched therein is expanded subsequently.The language is clear and figures convey their intended meaning,overall its a wonderful starting point for further study in silicon integrated circuits technology.As has been pointed out in one of the reviews here, this book has been adopted in many US universities.The link embedded in this review is one such instance and as such can be used to obtain more information and benefit from a full set of audio lectures, assignemnts and other supplementary material as a part of MIT's open course ware program.The instructor is Prof Judy Hoyt.
[...]

Before this book was published, Wolf & Tauber's book was the only good reference I had. Plummer's new book has a thorough review of basic principles, very well updated parts on current manufacturing equipments (Wolf's book also has extensive coverage in this respect). The best part in my opinion is oxidation & diffusion parts where the authors are one of the leaders in current research. The book not only focuses on the specific details, but also gives an integrated view of the whole CMOS fabrication process, which I enjoyed a lot.

I strongly recommend this book for students who want to learn basics of IC fabrication and also professional engineers who needs a good and well updated reference.

if your an electrical / process engineer, this is one of the must have books.

I've read a number of books in this field - Plummer, Wolf, Campbell, Sze, Madou. Each book has its strength, and Plummer's book stands out in terms of its broad, in-depth coverage of modern silicon CMOS technology. It doesn't cover MEMS or other exotic nanofabrication.

Many students who've read the book said that Chap 2, where a modern CMOS process flow is described step by step from the substrate to back-end, was the best part. By doing so, the authors teach us that not only unit processes but their collection, i.e. process integration, is the key in successful CMOS technology.

Overall, the quality of the content and attention to small details are superb, as one can expect from a book written by one of world's foremost researchers in the field (Plummer is the Dean of Engineering School at Stanford). In particular, I liked chap2 for integrated description of CMOS flow, the lithography chapter which covers optical systems, details of photoresists, phase shift masking. Also, diffusion and ion implantation parts are second to none, since the authors made numerous contributions to the research field. It's such pleasure to learn about the latest in silicon IC processing from the Silicon Valley authority at Stanford!

The book has been adopted by many US engineering schools already, and I see it on many bookshelves belonging to IC engineers. If you need an authoritive, well-organized reference for modern silicon IC processing, I strongly recommend this book.

The best part of this book is that it covers modern fabrication technology. I expecially liked the approach of introducing the complete CMOS fabrication flow in the beginning. It puts a context to following chapters. It is what I call system level approach for slicon fabrication. There is also emphasis on measurement and simulutions that are missing from traditional books. Both these are essential to modern technology. Also, I was very happy to see details on manufacturing choices - e.g. LOCOS vs STI. Explanations are clear.
This is a text book, therefore at times may seem too dense, but definitely worth it if you are a process engineer.

You may find the articles in this book one by one from the net, but it's always good to have a all-in-one product.

For anybody involved in teaching classes on Project Management, this book is an excellent reference. Broad focus, enjoyable and informative reading...

This book is a collection of numerous classic articles on software project management. It is well organized and it is clear that a great deal of effort was put into identifying the best articles to include in this collection. The reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is for what it doesn't have -- an index! Without an index you will have a difficult time finding specific information without scanning many pages of text.

This book provides a broad but detailed look at the functions and activities necessary for the proper management of a software development project. It is what you would expect from IEEE, an academic perspective on the process---both from a quantitative development and quality management orientation. Some of the contributors are, of course, priceless (particularly Alan M. Davis' "Trial By Firing: Saga of a Rookie Manager") in relating their own experiences as project managers in this strange business we're in.

This collection was so good that I went back and ordered the other two collections (Software Engineering and Software Requirements Engineering). For anybody who teaches Software Engineering or Project Management classes (or anybody wanting a broad knowledge of the subjects), these books are invaluable.

This book is the best book on software project management available for three reasons: (1) it talks to the basics of what makes a successful project and manager, (2) it describes what does not work in a software project, and (3) it walks through practical steps that can be used on real software projects to solve real process problems through the complete life cycle. The book is well written, concise and does not subscribe to any fad methodology or proscribe any silver bullet solutions (smart work and attention to detail are the only effective methods). In fact, the author spends much time debunking industrial myths. There is a good section on cookbook solutions and an example project included as a learning tool. I use this book on the job and highly recommend it.

Unlike most text books, it is a very easy to read book allowing one to read it from cover to cover. The book is an excellent source for novice project managers who need a guide to the many aspects that come with the job. Personally I refer to it often for suggestions on which documents I should produce or what actions to take while managing a project.

This book covers Software Project Management broadly with a lot of good information for both the new project manager as well as the old hand. The material is presented as a comprehensive overview rather than a detailed instruction. By itself the book does not go deeply enough into any of the areas to provide a novice with enough useful information so it's a good book to use in conjunction with books providing more detail.

Despite its lack of detail, the book presents many important points - the importance of the human equation, analysis/organization tools such as Tony Buzan's MindMap, having a Management Information Center, and using standards without having a programmer's revolt. There is only passing mention of key issues such as scope creep, the tendency of management to try to throw more personnel at a project in trouble, needing to build testing into the initial design process, and the pro's and con's of the various development methods (waterfall, spiral, etc.). A number of references are quoted, including many IEEE documents (IEEE is the publisher) plus books by Gerald Weinberg, Capers Jones, Tom Demarco, and other recognized gurus - which make good adjuncts to this handbook.

Phillips perpetuates one of my pet peeves, the issue of including the top ten risks in the risk assessment document. What if there are only 7 risks which seem to be significant? What if there are 12? Granted, it would be unwieldy to track & evaluate dozens of risks routinely, but it doesn't make sense to suggest that exactly 10 be tracked.

The discussions of Configuration Management are quite lengthy and in a bit more detail than other topics covered.

Although the book is fairly short at 500 pages and is easy reading, there is a substantial amount of information covered. The 5 star rating is for the breadth of information covered, with the caveat that other references would be needed by those unfamiliar with the concepts presented.

Don't confuse the ease of reading this excellent book with the depth and power of the information within it. Being involved in software project management myself, I related to the ideas the author expressed and feel I have learned much from reading the book. Other project managers in my company are now reading this book and share similar opinions.

The book contains good explanations of various techniques for formalising projects. It also contains a number of case study experiences which are very apt.

I recommend this book to project managers of all levels and to managers of software companies.

This is a well written book for the people interested in succeeding with software project management. The author spells out the key pit falls to software development and offers realistic solutions. There are many up to date helpful graphics and tables throughout the book. This is easy reading and keeps the reader interseted.

Although very popular in its day; Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" was later viewed to be superficial and saccharine. Where as Walt Whitman may have spoken with more of an organic American voice, Longfellow drew upon English Romantic models and looked to Norse and especially the Finnish epic or "edda" "Kalevala" for inspiration.

Not with standing; Longfellow's saga is pure New England Renaissance; touching upon values and aesthetics characteristic of Longfellow's circle: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emerson and Thoreau.

The nature-painting of the "Song of Hiawatha" is outstanding; the poetry is full of quotables; and the over-arching message is profound.

A book for generations. Mine was published 1898 and given me by my mother whose father(b.1875) gave it to her. It goes to the heart of the Indian race, a people susceptible to mythology and magic as their last great hope. Read it with an open mind, imagination, and for its beauty.

"The Song of Hiawatha" is the best book I have ever been exposed to. Every time I hear the wonderful rhyme of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I begin to think of what this land was like before the Europeans conquered it. It is a wonderful tale of peace between nations and a great book to read to children.

An undying tale.. legend... song... Wonderful poetry, the language is simply astounding! I have read the russian translation by Bounin, which was as remarkable as the original.

I always try to improve my writing skills and this book aids in that. I will recommend this book to anyone.

This would be a handy reference for business professionals. With its good contents and fair price it sells for, I will say, "It is worth having a copy in one's library".

You might think a reference book on how to write business letters would be a dull read - but not this one! In fact, this book is fascinating and fun, thanks to the author's witty and imaginative presentation.

Whether your purpose is to sell a product, collect a payment, extend an invitation, or secure employment, this book has advice you can use. Not only does it explain how to correctly format your letter, but it also offers guidance on how to organize your thoughts on paper, how to choose the most effective words, and how to charm your readers with tact and courtesy. In addition to the numerous example letters provided throughout the book, there are five appendixes at the end, serving as a handy reference guide to such topics as grammar, punctuation, and commonly confused words.

As the world of business becomes more demanding and competitive, writing well is now more than ever a way to stand out. This book will help you do that.

Paul Francis Musgrave, author of Indispensable Marketing Strategies - How to Outwit Your Competition, Attract and Retain Customers, and Multiply Your Profits - Marketing Strategy Secrets for Profitable Small Business Management

I had always procrastinated writing business letters(letters, faxes, e-mail messages) especially the important ones, thinking I could never write well enough to explain my ideas.
Now I have a concrete 6-step process + several examples which lead me to write what i want in the best way.
" in a well-written & well-formatted document:
the subject line tells the story & mentions the keyword
there's plenty of white space that provides a resting place for your eyes
Paragraphs are short & reliable
Sentences are short, simple & easy to read
Key info pops out without your having to read the entire message
Headlines direct your eye to key pieces of information
Critical information is numbered for easy reading "

Tired of developing perfect business letter and email models, only to lose them in the morass of inbox materials? Frustrated about imparting the right tone and point in a business letter? Use Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts' Strategic Business Letters And E-Mail's series of sequencing steps to write a draft, design for visual impact, and create a winning letter model which can be used as a proven template of success. Letters are grouped by subject such as Customer Relations or Media Relations, and outline just why some messages succeed while others fail.