Professional Books

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Street-Smart Ethics by Clinton W. Mclemore is a book that should be read not only by people who aspire to be involved in business, but also by anyone who wants to make ethical decisions in the gray and complex areas where we function in everyday life. The book is divided into three parts, part one is "A non-Nonsense Premier on Ethics," part two is "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Time," and part three is "Testing Your Mettle." Each part is divided into several subsections with a lot of real life example, making it easy to grasp the author's point.

The first part begins with an analysis of what now have become the classical study cases in corporate ethics, Enron and WorldCom and the new ethical implications for people holding MBA and CPA degrees. In the next section, the author analyses the relationship between law and ethics and the implications for individuals. Breaking the law is clearly identified as being something "bad." However, there are other circumstances where "ethical dilemmas" are not clear (such as when an act or behavior may be accepted within the legal framework but may be unethical). According to the author this gray area is where many people fail to behave correctly. Ethics tell us what other members of society perceive to be our moral obligations. That is why many professions such as doctors and lawyers develop their own ethical codes that should guide them in their practices.

In this first part Mclemore also presents some suggestions as to how to avoid getting involved in unethical dilemmas. His recommendations include leaving a company one works for when one discovers that the values of the organizations are not as one expected. The author also presents some recommendations for those employees who decide to "blow the whistle," which include consulting an attorney before taking any action as well as making sure one will be able to withstand the hostile attacks that "blowing the whistle" often entails.

In the last section of part I, the author makes a good job in distinguishing simple versus complex ethical dilemmas and the way to approach them. Simple dilemmas involves straightforward question of right and wrong. The general approach suggested by the author to simple ethical dilemmas are to consult knowledgeable and wise colleagues who may have faced similar dilemmas in the past and to consult whatever codes of conduct that may apply. Complex moral dilemmas emerge when we have to choose between two or more evils or two or more goods. The author makes this comparison clear by using a series of examples both in business and personal context. However, at the end of this section, I think the author fell shortly in explaining two approaches or theories to solving ethical issues: duty-based (deontological) theories that focus on duties, and consequence-oriented (teleological) theories that focus on consequences. Although the author makes it clear that the purpose of this book was not to explain these theories in detail, he does not link this section of the book with the others. Then, he should have either explained these theories in detail or leave this section out of the book.

In part II of this book, Mclemore takes 50 proverbs from the Bible to develop a guideline for Christian people that could serve as a guide to staying out of troubles and to use it to enhance our wisdom, integrity, judgment, and many other "virtues" that are valuable to society. Every proverb is followed by a short explanation on how to apply it to everyday life, as well as provides questions for reflection. I found this to be a good technique in presenting the material because most of the questions for reflection are straightforward, making it easier to remember and apply the material presented in the book. Furthermore, the author uses his psychology background to make excellent recommendations as to how to learn the most from this section and from the entire book, which is something that many books lack.

In the last part of this book, the author provides a series of questions and problems that should help the reader to test the material learned from the book. He does a good job in breaking down the questions and problems into simple and complex ethical dilemmas. Simple ethical questions are presented to be answered as true and false, while complex ethical questions are presented in short cases.

I think Mclemore does a good job in expressing in simple words (160 pages) the challenges involved in ethical issues both in the business and personal arenas. This will be an excellent book for those students who have not been exposed to ethics readings before because it is a straight forward reading.

In this time of history repeating itself and major corporate scandals being splashed across the media again, Dr. McLemore's book is a refreshing primer on developing and maintaining personal integrity in the workplace. Whether or not the reader is a Christian, he or she will enjoy the engagingly-written Proverbs-based section in Part II of the book. This fine little tome is well worth the time investment!

In this time of history repeating itself and major corporate scandals being splashed across the media again, Dr. McLemore's book is a refreshing primer on developing and maintaining personal integrity in the workplace. Whether or not the reader is a Christian, he or she will enjoy the engagingly-written Proverbs-based section in Part II of the book. This fine little tome is well worth the time investment!

Dr. McLemore wrote a wonderful book to help people make good ethical choices in murky situations. This book will interest several types of readers. For those readers who need the occasional reality check, the two page summary on prudent conduct will fit the bill. I recommend business professionals read the summary at least once a week. For professionals wanting a practical course to improve their people skills, McLemore's 50 Guidelines with the accompanying Questions for Reflection will not disappoint. For graduate MBA students taking an ethics course, the provided case studies will stimulate lively discussions and challenge the most thoughtful reader. What pleased me most was how McLemore took King Solomon's 2,500-year-old Jewish leadership manual (the Book of Proverbs) and weaved it into a practical 21st Century business handbook. In whatever way you read this book, you won't regret your investment of time.

My son has an undiagnosed developmental delay - similar to cerebral palsy. He is 20 months old and I am so glad that I found this book while he was young (although I wish I had been stretching him since infanthood). We have excellent therapists, but this book is a great reminder of how important home therapy is - and it serves as a reminder to me of the exercises the therapists do. Easy to read and the pictures are a good guide.

This book is filled with helpful, easy to understand info for parents of kids with CP. My daughter is 3 and I wish I had it when she was an infant. I haven't finished reading it, but have learned alot. Her physical therapist even uses one of the walking suggestions (using a hula hoop) and says it's a great idea.

Great book! Very helpful for parents of children with CP. Book was received quickly and was in very good condition.

This book is a great help for many types of motor delays other than cerebral palsy. Highly recommended by the mother of a special needs toddler who is not walking or standing.

I work with students with severe and profound multiple disabilities (3-22 years)and I have found this book helpful when explaining things to my staff and parents. It really is written so anyone can understand and the chapter breakdown lets you go right to the skill without having to read the whole thing. My OT and PT also checked it out and loved the "Tummy Time" section. I would also reccomend "Children with Disabilities" by Batshaw. This is a must in a professional (or personal) resource library.

The "how to" leadership books are spilling off the shelves, so I thought that "Trust Me" to be another ineffective book on this subject. However, as I began to read I couldn't put the book down. I read it through in 2 days. I've then re-read it 2 times. It is GREAT!

Ron Potter and Wayne Hastings have managed to peel away to the true core of leadership.

From insight about the greatest leader of all time to colorful stories about other leaders, it's a riveting book.

This book has personally changed my life and my leadership style. I have incorporated the principles from the book and have created personal goals in an attempt to be a better leader.

If you lead people...either a business executive, production line worker, a team player or a parent, "Trust Me' is essential reading.

I found this book fascinating as the authors focus on the internal world of leaders who are trustworthy, and the nurture of a character that others will want to follow. My favorite quotes:
--To be teachable, one must devote a significant amount of time to learning.
--Leaders are defined buy those who follow them.
--A successful mentoring experience does require a significant prerequisite: a quality person to mentor.
--The mentoring or coaching role is mainly about creating a safe environment to discuss any topic.
--Trustworthiness means being reliable, faithful, and unfailing. Trustworthy leaders are honest and transparent, committed, dedicated, and keep promises and confidences. They also have the moral courage to do the right thing and to stand up for what they believe even when it is difficult to do so.
--In practical, day-to-day leadership, only what is accomplished matters.
--Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders [leaders who have taken companies to unprecedented long-term growth] seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy--these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar.
For aspiring leaders, this book will help you clarify the character traits needed inside before the power accumulates outside.

Presents a style of leadership based on 8 values: humility; development; commitment; focus; compassion; integrity; peacemaking; and endurance. The authors explore how these spiritual values are keys to building trust with people and becoming a successful leader, as well as building a successful career. This book has its distinct point of view-no question about it. But given the abundance of bad leadership in business, politics, and other spheres, the spiritual qualities this book links with effective leadership deserve serious consideration.

Trust Me is one of those rare books that provides timeless insights with personal insights and help for all of us. Hastings and Potter take the reader on a leadership journey and challenge us at the end of each chapter with thought-provoking questions and personal growth suggestions. I literally could not put this book down! It has helped me and my team to understand how we can be successful leaders. This is a must read for any person wanting to improve their leadership skills.

Wayne Hastings and Ron Potter have written an inspirational book that provides the key principles we all need to guide us in our personal and business lives. It is a book to be kept close at hand to keep our thinking and actions on the path of a principle based life. The real life stories and the opportunity provided to reflect after each chapter with thought provoking questions about ourselves and how we interact with others helps teach us how to be leaders others can trust.

Honeynet solutions were seen just as a research technology a couple of years ago. It is not the case anymore. Due to the inherent constraints and limitations of the current and widely deployed intrusion detection solutions, like IDS/IPS and antivirus, it is time to extended our detection arsenal and capabilities with new tools: virtual honeypots.

Do not get confused about the book title, specially about the "virtual" term. The main reason to mention virtual honeypots, although the book covers all kind of honeynet/honeypot technologies, is because during the last few years virtualization has been a key element in the deployment of honeynets. It has offered us a significant cost reduction, more flexibility, reusability and multiple benefits. The main drawback of this solution is the detection of virtual environments by some malware specimens.

The detection of honeypots has always been one of the main concerns in the honeynet community, basically because if the attacker can identify them, they are useless. For this reason, one of the chapters is just focused on providing some light, tips, and tricks about what an adversary can really accomplish. In fact, we have not seen lots of real-world incidents where the attacker actively checks the existence of honeynet setups.

I have been working with honeynets during the last 5 years. We founded the Spanish Honeynet Project on 2004, and almost at the same time we became part of The Honeynet Project and released the Scan of the Month 32. The main honeynet/pot book reference till last year was the book published by the Honeynet Project. As this is a rapidly evolving field, definitely it has been replaced by this book, written by two project members.

The first chapter is a very brief introduction to honeynet technologies and basic tools. You can jump through it if you are not new to this field. Then, the book covers the main two honeypots types: high and low interaction. The high interaction section provides details about the tools to virtualize your honeypots: VMware, UML, or more specific solutions, such as Argos. The low interaction section provides details about some the most relevant honeypot types to cover lots of detection scenarios: worms, traditional server attacks, Google Hacking, Web-based attacks, etc. It is a wide overview that will give you lot of ideas for new deployments.

The whole book has been cooked with a how-to mentality , and it explains in detail how to install and configure the different tools and software elements covered. Additionally, it provides guidelines, best practices, and analysis recommendations for each tool based on the authors experience. However, for the how to portions take into account that most of the solutions are Linux-based, and the installation and setup process will vary based on the tool version and the Linux distribution you are using (library dependencies, etc). In any case, the step by step guides are very useful as a general setup reference.

From my perspective, the most valuable part of the book is chapters 4 to 6. The authors, Niels Provos and Throsten Holz, are the lead developer/architect for honeyd (chapter 4 and 5) and strongly related with nephentes (chapter 6), respectively. These two are the most famous and advanced low-interaction server-based honeypot and malware honeypot. They know what they are talking about :), and you cannot find a better reference out there for these two tools. The book is an excellent guide, covering from the design principles and innovative deployment ideas, to all kinds of configuration options and possibilities, including limitations on real-world scenarios. Chapter 6 is complemented with other less popular malware-based honeypots (except for Honeytrap).

The book includes some extra material, covering academic and research hybrid solution, still on their early stages, but that can give you and idea of where these technologies are evolving to and the major challenges we are facing nowadays. This pretty much theoretical content is well balanced with the case studies chapter, where real incidents involving different honeypot types are presented. These are always a fun read and a way of getting experience and learn how to deal with intrusions.

Finally, one of the main expansion areas we are involved today is the creation of new client-based honeypot technologies. This book section (highly recommended) does a great job introducing multiple high and low interaction honeyclients currently available, their benefits and drawbacks (chapter 7). This information is perfectly complemented by the last two chapters, focused on tracking botnets and analyzing malware with sandbox environments. Once a client is compromised, it typically becomes a member of a botnet, and for easy and quick categorization, we start by performing a malware analysis of the specimens. I recommend you to add all this knowledge to your incident handling and response capabilities.

Something I would have liked to see in the book is a section about a fully virtualized honeynet environment, showing how using VMware, you can build up a virtual Honeywall (just slightly mentioned on chapter 2) and different honeypots, creating a complete, cheap, mobile and multi-purpose virtual honeynet infrastructure. Also, we receive multiple questions related to this kind of setup in the Honeynet Project mailing lists, because all the previous whitepapers are obsoleted now. I've been deploying these type of solutions for fun and professionally during the last few years and I strongly recommend you to start using them. You won't be disappointed about how much you can learn of what is going on in your networks and systems, and this book is the best starting point.

If you have any relationship with the intrusion detection, incident handling and forensics, threat analysis, or SOC and CERT security side of things, definitely this book is for you. Go through it and improve your capabilities with easy to deploy virtual honeypot solutions. You just need a (not so new) computer, virtualization software, and some time!

The book is well written and I feel that I will be successful in setting up my first honey pot once I get my network segmented for security purposes.

Excellent, really good, sorry for my bad English, but is EXCELENT BOOK.

Regards

Carlos

I have relatively little to add to the praise that has already been given of this book, but I found it extremely enjoyable. In particular, the chapters on collecting and analyzing malware were quite good, in my mind. I think the book delves a bit too deeply into man page territory with the level of detail provided on the minutia of utilities, but that doesn't detract from the book, as it is very clearly segmented away from loftier topics.

Overall, I found this book to be quite excellent, and very informative and accessible to those new to the arena of Honeypots.

It's fairly difficult to find good books on digital defense. Breaking and entering seems to be more exciting than protecting victims. Thankfully, Niels Provos and Thorsten Holz show that defense can be interesting and innovative too. Their book Virtual Honeypots is your ticket for deploying defensive resources that will provide greater digital situational awareness.

A security technician with some degree of proficiency should be able to read Virtual Honeypots and then implement at least one of the solutions presented. This sounds like a fairly common event, but too often technical books do not provide the detail required to transform theory into practice. Virtual Honeypots offers installation and operational guidance for a variety of deception and analysis systems, primarily for server-oriented technologies. I especially gained a better understanding of Honeyd and Nepenthes, the two applications about which I cared the most.

While I liked the first 2/3 of the book, I have to say I really enjoyed the last four chapters. These covered Detecting Honeypots, Case Studies, Tracking Botnets, and Analyzing Malware with CWSandbox. Of these the final chapter was superb. Ch 12 has probably the clearest explanation of hooking I've read anywhere. I am not a rootkit writer or Windows kernel programmer, but the text was so well written I had zero problems following along.

I gave Virtual Honeypots five stars because it is so unique and well-written, but I do have a few minor issues to mention. First, I was somewhat disappointed by the honeyclients section (ch 8). I was not as confident that I could implement a honeyclient solution after reading the great material on server-oriented honeypots. Perhaps the second edition or a separate book will give greater attention to this area. Second, I found a few small technical items. On p 4, it isn't accurate to say "TCP...[gives] each packet a sequence number." Bytes of application data are numbered, not packets. On p 13 we are told to use a snaplen of 1500 bytes, but this will cut off the last 14 bytes of many Ethernet frames. Try it with ping -s 1472 while sniffing with Tcpdump. As you can see, these minor issues are easily fixed in a future printing and do not justify dropping a star.

If you are at all interested in potentially deceiving intruders, buy and read Virtual Honeypots. You'll learn about more than VMware (QEMU, UML, etc.) as well as numerous open source tools you can download and try for free. I look forward to reading more from these authors -- perhaps a book of true case studies?

Dr. Froehlich writes a refreshing view concerning globalization of economies and markets, but you shouldn't expect this book to tell you where the money is. Well, I guess it does; it's in the market somewhere in one or a combination of five sectors (Pharmaceuticals, Technology, Telecommunications, Financials, and Energy). Besides that common knowledge, he also explains that the market is currently moved by fear and greed and people should think and invest "long-term" instead of acting on emotions created by mass amounts of information and constant hype. I didn't need to spend $29.67 for that info either. The book simply explains that the world of economics is changing because of shifting demographics, globalization, technology, government, and business trends. The thing that I like most about the book is that it made me sit back and think about the "big picture" for a moment. It's not a bad read as long as you don't expect to finally get to the page that tells you where the money is.

Thanks, Dr. Bob, for a great book on investing! This book is something I have needed to read for a long time. When reading investment books, the advice is often about IRAs, 401(k)'s, bonds, stock market, market timing, etc.

Dr. Bob's advice is in a totally different area. He believes in something called "sectornomics" which means if you look at all the industry sectors and determine which ones will do well in the next five years, then invest in several companies in that sector, your portfolio will do well. Don't worry about which particular stocks too much, just pick the right sector. Pharmaceuticals, let's say. Then, for the majority of the book, Dr. Bob goes on about the various trends in the US and worldwide which will whip the stock market sectors one way or another.

Should you bet on a Japanese resurgence in the next ten years? Don't think so. How about betting on the graying of America? Sure, says Dr. Bob, but remember, Europe and Asia are graying too.

Doesn't sectornomics break the rule of investing that "the only thing that makes the stock market go up or down is a surprise?" Doesn't everyone know about the graying of America? Yes, they know, but no, it doesn't break that rule. Sectornomics means "looking at the same thing everyone else looks at, and seeing something different." Your own perspective can give you the added advantage over the market.

Inspired by Dr. Bob, I began my own personal portfolio based on alternative energy, because I have found out that this sector is about to boom in the next 10 years. A little research (using the Internet of course) and now I have a list of about 30 companies who are extremely well positioned to make a lot of money once alternative energy goes big. The key for me was seeing the big players (United Technologies, Idatech, Xcel, BP, etc.) investing heavily into this sector. BP makes millions of dollars yearly from manufacturing solar cells.

Dr. Bob's knowledge of statistics is absolutely amazing. And his writing style is very approachable.

I heard Dr. Bob speak at an investment seminar in Columbus, Ohio. His speech was good but his book -- excellent. Just buy it. It is the best investment you will make this year.

Not the most insightful financial book I've read. It contains a fair amount of fluff. It does point out some major trends based on demographics and the concept of sector investing.

If only all of the talking heads on CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg and the other financial media were as easy to read and understand as Bob Froehlich.
Readers who wish to truly understand money, the economy, the stock and bond markets, and future investment trends should read this book. They should make sure their spouses and older children read it, too. I know I wish I had read it before the last bull market, and the correction in 2000.

Robert J. Froehlich has written an informative and highly readable guide to understanding the emerging global economy. Never dry, dull or dense, his book focuses on the factors that combine to create both major and minor global economic trends. If you understand these trends, he maintains, you can make wise investment choices now and in the future. At the end of the book, Froehlich includes a glossary of terms, though - unlike many investment books - you don't find yourself lost in a sea of insider jargon while reading. He writes delightfully, easily shows you how global trends connect and conversationally explains what this means to you professionally and personally. We [...] recommend this book to all readers, since no matter your area of expertise or interest, if you live on this planet your economic well-being is affected by globalization.

I've read other books about finding life's purpose and calling, but they often do not give you the tool just to do that. This book does!

I've been using the Calling Card exercises to help my family and friends discovering their life's callings. It's a very easy and effective tool to find life's calling.

Books like this do everything in their power to get your drive going. And every time I read one (which isn't often), I do feel good about myself. But in the end, I'm back on Earth a few days later. OK, I am sounding pathetic, but the truth is, there isn't a whole lot of practical advice here, just motivational anecdotes. To be frank, there is nothing wrong with that. It just needs more to distinguish itself.

It starts out promising with the part about choosing the characteristics you most want in a job. However, it goes downhill with the straight out of "Touch By an Angel" cabbie stories that start every chapter. What I really did like about this book is that it makes you reevaluate the situation you are currently in to make the most of it. It doesn't preach dropping everything and chasing after your dream because not all of us are in a position to do so. Another thing I liked is that it keeps the message short (under 200 pages). There is no need for a book like this to be 300+ pages. All in all, it's a good starter book for those looking to make a career change.

This book helped me put a Name Tag on my life's calling.
I also found out how often I am able to use it in my job (only 10% of the time).
Now I need to know what jobs I could get that would maximize my use of my gifts - so I will never have to 'work' another day.

There are 52 transcendant calling cards from which everyone can pick their gifts. There were not enough examples of how people use their callings appropriately. I would have at least wanted to see a list to match jobs to calling cards.

I highly recommend this book. I've been trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up for a long time. Now I finally am able to put a name to it.
I got the book from the library, I wouldn't recommend buying it.

Get control of your career and your expectations of what career means in your life. This book does a great job of guiding you along as you question where you are in life and where you want to be. Redundant at times and interactive "take control books" usually don't appeal to me, but this one is an expection.

Davey is a great guy. He rides his bike all over Seattle. He wears really cool glasses too. I'm honored to be mentioned in the book. Dave is a great writer and philosopher. Everyone should buy this book and give copies of it as gifts to their friends.

I needed to read this book. I am in the process of pursuing a private pilots license and this was so beneficial to me to be able to read a book that answered those questions I would have never thought to ask.

I must agree with every positive thing said about this work. It has really inspired and carried me through into actually taking action. Like having a friend by your side, giving advice.

Very well written introduction for anyone considering becoming a pilot. This book provides a short, but thorough, analysis of just about all that being a pilot involves - from initial training to life as a General Aviation pilot. Finally - a book well worth the money!

Your Pilot's License provides a simple, concise guide to getting your license to fly. Eichenberger describes both how to actually fly a plane as well as the process by which one learns how and is licensed to do so. Eichenberger's experience as a flight instructor (CFI) clearly shows, as much of the book reads like a flight lesson.

The book is a must-read for anyone thinking about taking up flying or who has just started taking lessons. Not only does is summarize what to expect, it also provides a wealth of knowledge that should help make your lessons more effective. Eichenberger explains complicated concepts in simple English. Particularly helpful to the beginning pilot will be his explanations of how lift works and how to "fly the box" taking wind into account.

For those who have been flying for a period of time, the book offers very little (other than perhaps nostalgia about those first flights). If you don't already know what is covered in this book (and in some areas, significantly more than is covered) you really shouldn't be flying a plane.

For those looking to get their flight instructor certificate, this book holds particular value as it will help you learn how to teach your students! It is also very helpful in remaining us how if felt "from the other side."

I am a CFI (Certificated Flight Instructor) and have read several popular 'Private Pilot Training' manuals. Many of them are expensive, and very thick. I don't use them though...I use THIS book. It covers 90% of what I want covered in ground school, and I augment it with other materials as I see fit. It is quite inexpensive, and it is very well-written. I highly recommend this book to prospective pilots, to student pilots, and to certificated pilots as a handy 'quick refresher'. If you have ever considered becoming a pilot (trust me, it is worth every penny), this this book gives you a great overview of what flying is about.

This book is absolutely not a book for beginners, but a great desk reference. A must have for any serious Access developer.

As the word 'Developer' should imply, this book is not for MS Access beginners, but once you qualify yourself as 'intermediate' or better, you will feel right at home. Very little of this book is devoted to boring you with rehashes of stuff in the help file (as most other books seem to do). There is a great deal of depth and insight into areas that apply to everyday usage, complex projects, and solutions to many problems MS tends to ignore version after version.

The writing is excellent and they have a web site devoted to updates, errata and such which is very helpful. Chapters 10, 14 and 15 have had an extremely positive impact on the quality and usability of my projects in MS Access as well as VBA and Visual Basic. Many of the code samples are outstanding and written so that you can just drop them in to your projects with no modifications. Many of them are done so well they seem like natural extensions to MS Access (stuff MS 'should' have included in the 1st place).

Complaints? None. Well, okay, I do have 1 minor complaint. They devoted almost 30 pages to The Office Assistant. IMHO these pages and the Office Assistant itself are a complete waste.

This book and its previous versions are the best money I have ever spent. They continue to save me hundreds of hours while adding reliability and capability to all my projects. Highly recommended!

Not only is this series the absolute best when it comes to MS Access, it is the best technical documentation I've had the pleasure to use since the early days of Vax/VMS. A perfect blend of explanation, examples, syntax, and guidance. A level of art to which all others should aspire (and regrettably too many do not).

I'm comfortable with Access but when it comes to VBA I'm a newbie. This book doesn't only tell you what to do, but explains the why behind it. I have a database that I've put double digit hours (10+) into one problem. I got the book read up on combo boxes, the problem area, and in 30 minutes debugged my code to make them do what they were suppose to do. If I get nothing else out of this book it was worth it for that one issue, but upon further reading I'm learning the why's of Access. The code is still a little foreign but now I'm much more comfortable working in VBA. They use Reddicks naming convention which is different to me, but that's easy to look past. A great book!! Thanks Sybex!

Without a doubt, THE best book on Microsoft Access you will find. Most Access Developers will have several books on the shelf next to their desk gathering dust while they search through Google to resolve their latest dilema. Although I'm a Googler as well, my copy of ADH is frayed and worn...but never dusty. The authors write confidently and authoritatively, yet it seems that they take precautions to avoid intimidating the novice. I've seen reviewers referring to this book as "not for beginners." I was at the beginner-intermediate level when I first thumbed through it at a bookstore. I thought the pricetag was a little too high, but after about ten minutes I had to own it. Since then, it's brought me a long way. Whatever your level, if you really want to learn this stuff you will find great value here.

I bought this book because I started thinking of building a cluster in my basement just to experiment with parallel programming. Over the past few weeks reading and rereading sections of the book I've developed the confidence to get started. This won't be the only book I'll need. The author is very clear and unapologetic about that. I still need a good book on Linux and programming with MPI. I don't know everything I'll need to know, but I know far more about what I DON'T know and what other work I need to do.

All in all an excellent and very readable overview.

This book provides an exhaustive step-by-step examination of all of the elements that need to be considered for architecting a Linux cluster. The coverage is application neutral: High Performance Computing (HPC), Web load-balancing clusters, Enterprise computing centers; no matter. The details common to all clusters are thoroughly discussed.
As a Linux cluster developer of 7 years, I was able to expand and improve my own design processes to better cover all of the issues necessary to architect my designs. I heartily recommended this book to anyone designing a cluster of any size.

* a little bit too chatty (e.g. on page 162 he starts lecturing you about the meaning of 'freedom' after using the book's and your minds real estate telling you on page 36 about disposing of packaging hardware, ... @@, ;-))
* still using RH for 'serious' Linux work?
* pg 172, statement about Debian not supporting AMD "as of this writing" (?!) Could have just included the sentence. "check as of your reading of the book"
* no mention of transmeta's technological hardware advances (company itself may very soon go south) but their 'ideas' are really promising (for servers with very low power comsumption)
* pg 209, problems with RAID and root filesystem and things. You could just run Debian from a Live CD and leave all writable RAID disks along

The book describes in simple reproducable steps how to build a medium to medium big sized cluster. It also devides the clusters into the three main types,

HPC *High performance computing,
High Throughput and
High Availability cluster

and describes their usages. The book is describing cluster projects more from a bird view and gives a whole sight overview including budget calculations, comparing several architectures also by their technology and environmental conditions (Power usage, Cooling requirements etc.).

The book is not only hard to beat but also the perfect companion to the Linux Enterprise Cluster from Karl Kopper. While Karls book is a bit more practical it concentrates only on the technical configuration of "small" clusters.

Here is where Lubke comes in and extends that knowledge by the many environmental factors *Budget, technical considerations, Calculations, Estimates, Planning what to expect from your hardware *Performance, Weight, Heat, Flooring considerations etc.

After you read the book, you will have learned all necessary steps to build your own clusters. The "only" thing left to you is to put the ship to water ;-)

An incredible book and a real eye opener !!

This book is a very straightforward, clearly written and valuable introduction to Linux clustering. Geared toward system folks, it also provides numerous `on-ramps' into the basics of clustering to accommodate quick, relevant review of supporting technology for the reader. It is essentially a map for getting from start to finish in any Linux cluster project. Specific situations, conditions, and expectations differ across projects, of course, and such points are identified well in the text with pointers to additional information provided.

Scientific computing (HPC) is addressed well, and is more of the topic than any other cluster flavor, though the others are discussed as well (after all, who wouldn't want a side order of high availability with their HPC?). My cluster background personally was mostly high availability (Microsoft Wolfpack), so I appreciated the HPC overview, especially since I was already building a Linux cluster for my bio-algorithms that depended on HPC. This book helped me get every gflop out of my admittedly 2ndhand student hardware.

If you are getting involved with a cluster project or have one potentially on the horizon, and need a clear overview of what may lay ahead, pick up this book. For its measly sticker price, you get two solid discussion weeks with an expert. Go calculate that one:)
5 stars

Where the K&R book is terrible for learning C, this book makes it a snap.
It provides an organized and complete tutorial for the novice C programmer as well as a useful reference for the more experienced C user.

As some one who took an unguided path into C programming, I can really appreciate how much of a difference this book would have made if I came across it earlier.

This book elegantly lays down the structure and parts of the C language. It presents the reasons behind various features of the language.

This is the book that will teach you to think about programming in an intuitive way.

I have read the second edition and recently bought this third edition that has ANSI standard C in the main body of the work, rather than K&R C. I am using it to brush up on C that I have not used in a while. It is still a great book.

I have read the other reviews from December 1997 through February 2004. I do not have much to add to what has already been said, other than what the others write is true. I wish all technical books were this well written.

The perfect balance of complete, useful information on ANSI C. All technical information (data types, operators, declarations, pointers, arrays) is there. It it all explained in sufficient, readable but not wordy detail. It is remarkable in its efficiency.

It's all in there - the preprocessor, railroad diagrams showing the syntax of each statement, code snippets where they useful. Data structures, starting with the bit datatype, then defining and explaining more advanced concepts of unions, structures, and the user-defined types using _typedef_. Then full examples tieing it together with linked lists, then doubly linked lists.

A brief section on software engineering concepts showing the importance of design and test, and finally a complete working C interpreter.

What really sets it apart though is its complete reference of the most-used standard library functions - formatted and file I/O, string and memory manipulation functions. Effective use of the proven library functions is one of the marks of the software professional, and the outer framework of most useful real-life programs is getting data in and out.

The book begins with a very high-level overview of programs to establish its context, but this is NOT a how-to-program book. If you already understand the fundamental concepts (arithmetic and logical operations, looping) and you need a comprehensive book on how to use C, this is the one. There are lots of books in the "this is a reference, not a tutorial" class (e.g. K&R) and lots of wordy tutorials that never get to the difficult parts (like 'how do I pass a pointer to a multidimensional array.'). This is one book that is sufficiently organized to be a reference, with enough clear explanation that you'll learn how and why things work.

I've had my 2nd edition of this book since it was new in 1991 and recently purchased a copy of the reviewed edition for a friend. It's still excellent, with improved coverage of new features and extensions, and removal of the obsolete adjective "new" when referencing the ANSI standard that's been ratified for a good long while now.

There is no mention of C++ - this is a C book. Good ol' ANSI C is still the language of choice for many if not most embedded projects, even new design. I believe a solid foundation in C will serve any C++ programmer well - under the 'object' layer of C++ lie member functions that actually do the work, and those functions look a lot like C...

Like most good technical books, this one's not cheap, but it's a quality Springer-Verlag binding on acid-free paper that will last a career if not a lifetime. And considering the depth, breadth, and clarity of the content, it is a bargain.

A must-have.

15 years ago I came across this book accidentally in a second hand shop primarily selling Springer books.
I already had K&R because it was best known, but was not really satisfied with it as a transitioner from Fortran.
This book had all I needed, especially on pointers (see all other reviews).
I always enjoyed reading it. It's not about becoming a C obsfucation contest winner,
but about C as a tool for software engineers.
Combined with Harbison & Steele's "A C Reference Manual" and Hanson's "C Interfaces and Implementations",
which are my other most referenced C books, you will have a solid basic library to rely on as a C programmer.