Publications and Media Books

An outstanding book, it is clear, concise and complete. Most importantly, the theory and application are understandable and practical.

This book covers not only the foundations of Interviewing, but also the methodology in detail. l enjoyed this book very much because the author suggests the way how the interviewers excercize interviewing. Very well organized.

Here's the most frequently asked question whenever I show people my vacation photos: "Why aren't there any people in your pictures?" That's because I spend most of my time and film photographing interesting painted, tiled, or neon signs. Klaus Schmidt's gorgeous and quirky collection of signs from around the world in his colorful photos puts my snapshots to shame however (which, I suppose, is why he's a professional photographer with a book contract, and I'm not!)

Schmidt's beautiful full-color photographs of contemporary and historical signs take us around the world and through a history of cultures in their signage: street markers, pub signs, elaborate tombstones, gothic carvings, advertising placards, movie marquees, brilliant neon, and even common sights that aren't *completely* familiar (a McDonalds sign in Japanese). From famous (Checkpoint Charlie's "You are now leaving the American Sector") to the obscure (Morocco mailboxes) this is a quirky, entertaining, and beautifully designed collection, a wonderful book for photography fans, travel buffs, and anyone who is intrigued by the portrayal of culture through its most visible, yet often overlooked, public icons.

This book was a great way to learn about multiplicity signs around the world.Such as Germany, Japan, Puerto Rico, France and many others! Some signs that are shown are Weathered Road signs; the collage-like combinations of signs and posters on European kiosks; inscriptions on ancient gravestones; faded commercial signs painted on brick walls; and signage found on hotels, resturants, and theaters. The pictures were all very neat and well done and for anyone who has not looked at this GREAT book I suggest that you do right away!!!!

Now that Silverlight 2 RTW is out and the dust can settle down, it might be a good idea to start looking at the books on Silverlight. One recently completed book, by Chad Campbell and John Stockton, is Silverlight 2 In Action.

Both Campbell and Stockton are active Tweeters that you might want to follow with your favorite Twitter client, and Stockton in particular has quite a presence on the Silverlight Forums. Overall, this is a book that will satisfy both beginners to Silverlight as well as more advanced programmers who may not necessarily need "the basics".

Silverlight 2 In Action is laid out in 12 Chapters:

1 Introducing Silverlight
2 Harmony with the web
3 Back to the basics: Layout and text
4 Handling user interaction
5 Getting down with data binding
6 Networking
7 Managing digital media
8 Getting a grip on graphics
9 Bringing it to life: Animation
10 Giving it style
11 Enhancing the experience
12 Share the light: Distribution and deployment

The first chapter gives background information and some interesting statistics. It also talks about some basics that will be helpful to beginners and even to intermediate - level programmers. Expression Blend is covered quite well here.

The second chapter covers how Silverlight interacts with the HTML DOM of the browser and how the Silverlight plug-in works. It also covers installation issues and handling events.

The third chapter covers layout and text - the concept of the Canvas, how the XAML works, how to arrange and layout content, and more. UIElement and FrameworkElement are covered. All is in great detail.

The fourth chapter covers user interaction - drag-and-drop, controls, and dialog boxes. Keyboard input and events, the mouse, and much more.

The fifth chapter covers databinding - binding syntax, data sources, binding modes, the DataContext property, customizing the display, converting values, DataGrid and subcontrols, using LINQ, and a lot more.

The sixth chapter covers networking - trust, security and browser limitations, cross-domain policy, and connecting to data sources of all types. Very detailed treatment here.

The seventh chapter convers how to manage digital media in detail.

The eighth chapter deals with graphics - drawing, images, composite geometries, brushes, gradients, you name it, they seem to have it covered here.

The ninth chapter covers animation -- storyboards, doubleAnimation, the works.

The tenth chapter covers styling - resources, project structure, bundling of resources, and more. Visual State Manager is also discussed.

The eleventh chapter deals with enhancing the user experience -- IsolatedStorage, dynamic runtime XAML treatment, BackgroundWorker, updating the UI, retrieving content on demand, and more.

Chapter twelve covers distribution and deployment of Silverlight applications: UserControls, Dependency Properties, navigation, splash screens, and more.


Silverlight 2 In Action is loaded with excellent diagrams, illustrations, code samples and XAML. It is obvious that the authors took pains to ensure that they produced quality reading content. There is also an active forum for the book, in case you want to "keep up".

I've read a number of Silverlight books to date; many suffer the scars of having been begun for earlier Silverlight versions and have had to be updated as Silverlight has changed. Silverlight 2 In Action does not suffer from this -- it is feature-complete for the Silverlight 2 RTW (release) version and I do not believe I have seen any Silverlight book yet that has this much detail on virtually all the facets of Silverlight development.

Campbell and Stockton have done an excellent job. Recommended! I'd also like to mention that I'm pretty impressed with the Manning books in general so far.

This has been a crazy summer, but since our daughter has decided not to show up on her due date (which was September 24). I finally got some time to sit down and read a pre-release of Manning's Silverlight 2 in Action. I know the two authors who wrote this, and while John and I have had beer and burgers up in Bellevue, Chad and I have yet to meet up offline. So if I have to pick on someone, it will be Chad ;)

[ Disclosure: I was given a MEAP copy of this book specifically for review purposes ]

Executive Summary: If you want to learn Silverlight 2, get this book

First, a comment on organization. I like the way Chad and John have organized this book, building up from simple to more advanced concepts. While that may be a no-brainer, many authors lose sight of what it takes to bring a person up to speed on a new technology, and often start off with a concept that is just completely foreign to them. For folks who have an understanding of Silverlight, the first chapter will be review, but that is to be expected.

I tend to prefer books that are more presentation of facts than just run-throughs of tutorials. I know many folks also like the tutorial approach as well. For me, this book is a great example of the factual approach I prefer. Lots of detail and very well organized. You can approach the chapters or the subchapters in an ad-hoc way without getting lost in the middle of a larger tutorial. Great stuff!

One thing that stood out in chapter 1 was the mention of attached properties. This is often left out, and really is, along with the whole concept of dependency properties, a core concept that isn't intuitively obvious from looking at source and markup. The first time you look at xaml, you often wonder what the heck that "Canvas.Left" is doing on those controls.

Chapter 2 gets into the theory and practice of how Silverlight sits on an html page. The book explains the two separate OMs and how they integrate to build a full solution. It also goes into detail on the instantiation/installation model and the properties for the objects/functions used. I haven't seen this level of detail in any of the other books or online resources.

One you get past all that great information in Chapter 2 (which may be something you skip past at first, but will want to return to), Chad and John get into the guts of Silverlight programming, graphics, text and layout. From there he goes into controls, input and focus.

Then in Chapter 5, the guys talk about Data Binding. Binding is another one of those essential skills any Silverlight and WPF developer needs. Sure, Binding in WPF is richer, but it is still extremely useful in Silverlight 2. The chapter explains in detail what it takes to bind something, and what the under-the-covers binding process looks like.

Including LINQ in 5.5 seemed a little odd at first, but you have to cover it somewhere, since LINQ is an important technology that Silverlight can use. We even used it back in our Silverlight 1.1 alpha application in July 2007. So, including it in a chapter on Data Binding probably wasn't a bad idea.

Chapter 6 gets into a topic near and dear to my heart : Networking and Communications. This is the main chapter that John Stockton wrote. The authors do a good job here covering all the communications mechanisms in pretty good detail. I was about to complain about the lack of WCF Duplex, but then I found it under the advanced topic - a good place for this technology. The chapter glosses over the server-side work required to make the example work. As much as I would have liked to have seen that in there, I can understand why that might take up just way too much room in the book (and the book is on Silverlight 2, not WCF)

The section on sockets was just a placeholder in the version I reviewed. If the coverage of sockets is as good as the rest of the chapter, I have no doubt the content will be good.

Chapter 7 covers media and delivery mechanisms for that media. Media has been pretty beaten to death since Silverlight 1.0, so despite the great coverage of the content here, you may think there's nothing new to learn here. However, the chapter has great detail not only on the properties, but the lifecycle and order of events. Great stuff!

Chapter 7 is also the chapter where you'll see how to work with images and Deep Zoom.

Chapter 8 goes into vector graphics and brushes, and does a great job explaining all the moving parts there. Chapter 8 is also where you'll find the information on transforms. Transforms apply across the board to most any element, so don't assume by the placement here that they are restricted to vector graphics elements.

Chapter 9 goes into animation. I won't insult you by saying this topic is scary to developers, as I think most developers looking at Silverlight will be comfortable at least understanding the basics of animation. However, good animation can be daunting, and this chapter gives you at least the foundation you can build on or use to execute on the animations the designer has provided.

If you're an animation professional, or used to professional animation tools, you may want to skip chunks of this chapter, but most folks will need this basic understanding.

Chapter 10 goes into styling. First the chapter covers the basics of styling (and source URIs and resources), and then it gets into control templates. Finally, it tackles VisualStateManager, arguably one of the most important styling and state concepts.

Chapter 11 gets into more of the goodies that Silverlight includes in the box. Smaller topics like Isolated Storage, creating Xaml at runtime, background threads, downloading content at runtime (an expansion of networking concepts) including fonts and compressed files, and Silverlight 2 Xaps, and the DLR all get sections here.

Chapter 12 covers packaging up your wonder creations as units you can distribute to others. This isn't xap deployment, but about creating things you can share. Chad also offers up a decent navigation pattern here that seems to work well. This is the chapter where you'll find preloader / splash screen information as well as hosting and streaming. Of all the chapters, this was my least favorite due to its organization. That may be because it is unfinished, or because it was simply the last chapter in the book, and Chad had to pop a lot in there without making the book 1300 pages :)

I found a few small nits in the book, but I suspect those will be corrected in the final version. Overall, my opinion is that this is a very strong Silverlight 2 book.

Do I recommend this book? Definitely. If you are new to Silverlight, this one will be great resource for you to quickly get up to speed. There's just enough Blend in there to make sure you get the basics of the tool (which is often all most developers will need) and plenty of markup to help you along the way.

Two thumbs up.

Whether you're an author pursuing a deal with a major publisher or trying to decide if self-publishing is for you, This Business of Publishing is essential to understanding how the publishing world works. Curtis examines everything from the method used to sell books to the effects of mergers on editors, writers and agents as well as publishers and bookstores to the effects of technology on all aspects of the industry. This Business of Publishing will aid established authors, aspiring writers, and self-published authors in understanding the business of the book industry therefore helping them plan their career strategy.

Mr. Curtis has been around the publishing business for many years and his commentary shows it. He provides searingly honest information that illuminates "warts and all." At the same time, his love of the industry comes through. And the last chapter is laugh out loud funny - and very telling.

Reviewed by Regan Windsor for Reader Views (9/06)

Any failed project can feel as catastrophic as the sinking of the Titanic, and we can all learn from the lessons of failed projects. "Titanic Lessons for IT Projects" brings both these premises together by taking a look at the lifespan of the building and sailing of the Titanic "project" and comparing the lessons learned to that of the IT Project life cycle.

"Titanic Lessons for IT Projects" analyzes all facets of the building, marketing, and sailing of the Titanic. Full of informative diagrams, details, and insight it provides interesting and informative information on project management from lessons learned in the sinking of the Titanic.

The Titanic, like many IT projects, faced many failures after the project was deemed complete and "in production." However, many of the failures can be attributed to processes and design compromises throughout the project. Non-functional items were cut back to make way for more functional requirements (such as reducing the height of the bulkheads to allow for a larger ballroom, thereby reducing the ships ability to contain flooding). Proper testing was not carried out at various phases of the project due to pressures of time constraints and overconfidence; again major pitfalls in IT projects.

Just as project management companies can gain valuable insight for future projects through the analysis of both successful and, more importantly, failed projects the project management world can benefit from an analysis of the failure of one of the world's most famous failed projects. Not only does "Titanic Lessons for IT Projects" highlight the importance of testing, design, and ensuring the project does not become blinded by external agendas, it does so by providing real life analysis from an intriguing and thorough analysis of a historical legend. Full of fascinating facts and analysis it is easy to forget you are learning the facets of project management!

When I first saw the title of this book I had to smile at the thought of the big IT projects with which I have been associated that subsequently sank as though they had run into an iceberg.

An example though of how this book approaches comparing the Titanic with an IT project: One way to get an advance notice of an iceberg ahead is to pull up a bucket of sea water and get its temperature -- it's colder around the iceberg. A sailor was assigned to do this. He was observed filling the bucket with tap water, the rope he was given was too short to reach the sea. The IT meaning - set up tests, but be sure the tests are real and that the results of the test are based on real data not what is easy to obtain or pre-determined by other means.

This book is an easy reading - light hearted approach to illustrating some real truths about how projects (not only IT projects) really work. You'll pick up a few ideas about why the last project was so over time and over budget, and perhaps the next one will go better.

I've been looking for motifs to use in polymer and metal clays for jewelry, and this book has a stunning collection of faces. It also has several wonderful Hiroshigi's and Hokusai's (particularly and ocean wave I'm fond of). While I'm not sure that the designs will work out as transfers, the book is still enjoyable. I found several artists about whose work I was previously ignorant. Something new to contemplate.

Liz McFall's scholarly, carefully researched and well-written book has a simple narrative. Advertising is fun, interesting, multi-faceted and culturally significant. But it isnt new. The not-new-ness of advertising is McFall's refrain throughout this resoundingly anti-epochal tome. Semiotic critiques of advertising have, according to McFall, suffered from three main failings. Firstly, they assume that culture is a place that can offer meanings for economic manipulation. The author points out that culture and economy are mutually constitutive and it makes little sense to imply that they were once two separate domains, one tainted by commerce, the other a sort of anthropologists' Eden. Secondly, most post-Marxist critiques of advertising (and McFall leaves us in no doubt of the post-or-neo-Marxist credentials of the leading semioticians) suppose that advertising is more pervasive and persuasive than ever before. This complaint, we learn, has been made for the best part of three centuries, at least in the UK, which is the main source for McFall's historical research. If we look at ads in historical context, the use of integrated media, subtle typography, and emotional appeals have been part of the power of 'puffery' for a very long time. Advertising was never quaintly factual.

McFall calls her approach a genealogical one, which brings us to the third criticism of cultural critiques of advertising. Which is that some of the most prominent authors who used semiotic critique to locate advertising as an instrument of false consciousness didnt know much about the nuts and bolts of the ad game. Throughout McFall's book we are treated to many insights about the way advertising is made, and this illustrates well the limits of critical analyses of advertising texts that take little account of the way material practices have influenced and shaped advertising (or marketing communications, as it is known) and the way we understand it. Along the way the book takes many swipes at authors who base their claims about advertising's cultural influence on an alleged epochal new-ness. As she points out, even the wiles and wheezes of persuasive, pervasive advertising are not entirely new, at least not if we look at the way advertising was made, produced and understood since the 1700s.

McFall accepts that advertising technology has changed, and concedes that the modern-day mediated consumer cornucopia might just have some dimensions or effects that are new. And in the latter end of the book McFall uses reports of analyses of advertising archives (started, though no longer at, US agencies Ayer and JWT) to discuss the emergence of a hybrid discipline of copywriting that drew on post-war psychology, art and literature. JWT, indeed (after the influence of JWT himself had waned) became doyens of persuasion by using emotionally loaded copy. Still, though, she remains resolutely in epoch-denial and argues powerfully that cultural critiques of advertising are flawed because they take insufficient account of the historically specific material practices of the field. Advertising is a set of diverse and irregular material practices that are constitutive of culture.

After McFall's repeated references to the salutary intellectual effect of the material practices of advertising it comes as a slight disappointment that her sources are a couple of historical archives and a few ethnographies. McFall successfully shows that advertising has always been tricksy and everywhere, but takes no account of the effects technology and integrated media interests (and the material practices therein) have had on the way 20th century advertising is made and understood. Another issue is her characterisation that semiotic critiques of advertising depend for their coherence on an illusory binary of culture/economy.

So, stimulating, carefully argued, informative, an essential read for researchers in this field, but perhaps the PoMos can party on after all.

In an age when it seems like publishing houses are being snapped up right and left, it's a delight to read interviews with noted publishers who took a chance on writers they loved, regardless of the bottom line (and even made a profit doing so - sometimes). There are nine small press publishers represented here and the interviews are quite detailed and fascinating to read. Those interviewed are Henry Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, David Godine, Daniel Halpern, Sam Hamill and Tree Swenson, James Laughlin, John Martin and Jonathan Williams. They represent, in no particular order, the publishing houses of City Lights, Cummingham Press, David R. Godine, Copper Canyon Press, Ecco Press, New Directions, Black Sparrow and The Jargon Society, among others.

College-level libraries strong in video production techniques and teachings will find The Art of Video Production serves two purposes: as a classroom text it will offer a thorough grounding in the principles and skills of video production, and as a library reference it teaches not only how to make superior television programs, but how to juxtapose content and values and how to understand what makes for a superior production. Interviews with industry professionals offer analysis and concepts which can be used in all phases of production.

Author, Mary Rodwell, is a therapist and healer whose clients by their experiences and hypnotic regressions opened a new dimension to her practice. She was semi-prepared by her study of some books by several "heavies" in the ET phenomenon. Now she has joined them with her own research. Selected clients and their experiences ("Experiencers," she calls them), tell her story. Her conclusions that the Field of ET Study is fluid, constantly changing with the ebb and flow of time and experience, serves to comfort one for what he does not know, while complimenting one for what he has learned, and leaving the door open for whatever is new to come.

Her Chapter References and List of Useful Resources would keep one busy for years with reading and research. And afterwards, one would realize two things: 1) there is humility in recognizing how little one knows, and 2) there is great excitement over how much there is to learn.

"Awakening: . . ." by Mary Rodwell, leaves one with a little less to learn, well worth the read.