| |||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||
|
|
[BACK TO RESOURCES] |
|
Resources - Book Bytes |
| by Stephen M.H. Braitman - NBMA Director of Communications Book Bytes announces new publications of interest to our members and community in multimedia, technology, business, and culture. First appearance of each Book Bytes column is in the NBMA email events newsletter. To subscribe, send a blank email message to: nbmaevents-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. If you have a recommendation for review — and, especially, if you have published a book — send the information to . |
|
December 2002 END-OF-THE-YEAR CLEARANCE ARTIFACTS: An Archeologist's Year In Silicon Valley Christine A. Finn 294 pages, $15.95 MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu Oxford University archeology research associate Christine Finn spent time in the South Bay looking over the landscape of Silicon Valley and found culture loaded with instant history and laden with detritus. She's written a noteworthy book describing in personable, witty prose the physical and emotional "artifacts" that technology has spawned, from junked and recycled computer components to bubble-to-bust advertising images. She talks to collectors who've been able to afford extravagant hobbies and to janitors and farmworkers who've been affected by the Valley's rapid change. This is a brief but fascinating "outsider view" that peels away the veil of marketing to describe the real impact technology has had on the land and the people. Includes a fascinating portfolio of photographs. THINKING IN JAVA, 3rd Edition Bruce Eckel 1120 pages, $49.99 Prentice Hall /www.phptr.com The "definitive introduction to object-oriented programming in the language of the World-Wide Web" keeps getting bigger with every edition. This is a code-master's bible, not really useful as a ground-zero education but perfect for someone who's already a bit of a programmer. Eckel does a reasonable job of explaining the basics of objects and programming syntax, but it's up, up, and away through the intricacies of Java all the way through the latest Java 2 version 1.4 release. Indispensable for those who know. Includes a CD-ROM with a complete multimedia seminar, and an online component that includes lectures and slides by Eckel. DYNAMIC HTML: The Definitive Reference, 2nd Edition Danny Goodman 1401 pages, $59.95 O'Reilly www.oreilly.com Oh man, the subject weighs heavily not just on the mind but the body. This is one of the biggest items ever handled by Book Bytes, and I can immediately see that those one thousand four hundred pages really are needed in order to consider this a "definitive" encyclopedia on HTML and its related Web brethren, CSS, DOM, and JavaScript. Goodman's taken (wisely) an alphabetic approach, so you can simply look up <object> or endOffset or list-style-position and read clear definitions with useful examples. This isn't bedside reading, but it is probably the one essential reference the savvy Webmaster will need by their computer. HOW TO USE ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 5.0 & 5.5 Donna L. Baker 433 pages, $29.99 Que www.quepublishing.com This large-size, beautifully designed full-color manual presents excellent step-by-step instructions for all the major functions of creating motion graphics with Adobe After Effects. Nothing is too difficult to manage with the way in which Baker takes you in hand with her clear instructions. For example, want to change a color value for a different kind of effect? Step one, Adjust HSL values. (What does this mean? She tells you.) Step two, Use Colorama for complex effects. (Use the custom palette, and here's how.) Step three, Adjust input and output phase settings. (Oh, that's Phase Shift, right?) Step four, Customize the Color Palette. (I see what that is, there you go.) Step five, Adjust other image characteristics. (Need to get everything just right.) Step six, Apply a Media Effect. (What? Yes, that's clear now.) Step seven, Apply a tint to your image. (Voila!) Each function or effect is usually spread over two pages, so the instructions are not only clear and understandable, they're convenient, too. (All screen images are based on the Windows version, with Mac commands in parentheses.) COMMUNICATIONS POLICY AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Promises, Problems, Prospects Edited by Lorie Faith Cranor and Shane Greenstein 415 pages, $50 MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu Anyone even peripherally involved in the activities of Telecom Valley should have a look at this new compendium of essays and articles about the state of communications and technology. The editors have put together a distinguished list of contributors to discuss wide-ranging, relevant issues such as public policy, legal jurisdiction, the limitations of technology, and how regional economies affect the telecommunication industry. LEARNING VISUAL BASIC .NET Jesse Liberty 303 pages, $34.95 O'Reilly www.oreilly.com Reliable O'Reilly continues its efficient trend with this tutorial on the "next generation" programming language from the Visual Basic family. If you work with the .NET platform at any level, Liberty's clear prose style will give you a beyond-basics introduction to how you put together a large range of object-oriented programming structures. ABSOLUTE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO PROGRAMMING, 3rd edition Greg Perry 416 pages, $18.95 Que www.quepublishing.com If you're not yet a Basic, Perl, .NET, Unix, or C++ guru, this is the place to start. Greg Perry starts at the ground floor, with a bit of history of computer programming, expanding to how and all the different languages got created. A lively style with good, crisp explanations of arcane matters - he's even got a chapter entitled, "Having Fun with Visual Basic" - makes this an Absolute Beginner's Guide that no Web person should feel ashamed of reading. MACROMEDIA DREAMWEAVER ADVANCED FOR WINDOWS AND MACINTOSH J. Tarin Towers, Sasha Magee, and Abie Hadjitarkhani 490 pages, $29.99 Macromedia/Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com If you're considering using Dreamweaver with XML, this is the easy way to learn how. If you like the cool look of a fading random color each time a page loads, here's your resource how. As just these two examples show, the latest Peachpit Dreamweaver book takes basic Dreamweaver functionality to the next level, explaining in the usual Peachpit visual style a whole slough of tips and techniques that will give your Web design real flair and individuality. SAMS TEACH YOURSELF MICROSOFT OFFICE XP IN 24 HOURS, 2nd edition Greg Perry 429 pages, $24.99 SAMS TEACH YOURSELF THE INTERNET IN 24 HOURS, 6th edition Ned Snell 505 pages, $24.99 Sams www.samspublishing.com The Sams series is more straightforward than the Absolute Beginner's series, but just as beginner-friendly in introducing basic-to-complicated concepts. Many of the readers of this newsletter may scoff at chapters aimed at teaching how to use Netscape or search engines (in the Internet book) or Excel and Word (Office XP), but there's a real need for effective tutorials of computer workhorse programs in the absence of owner manuals. (Owner manuals are probably as foreign to younger users as LPs are to the CD generation.) (Actually, maybe CDs will soon be alien to the DVD generation). I must say that Ned Snell is one heck of a prolific guy! THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO: THE FBI John Simeon and David Jacobs 314 pages, $18.95 CAR CARE AND REPAIR Dan Ramsey 207 pages, $18.95 EDIBLE GARDENING Daria Price Bowman and Carl A. Price 310 pages, $18.95 DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY, 3rd edition Steven Greenberg 344 pages, $19.95 These four titles represent a good spectrum of the latest group of Idiot's Guide books to be released, and I point them out for a few reasons. One, life is more than just computers. (Work in your garden!). Two, there are hobbies out there that are more rewarding than just eBay. (Take some photographs of your family!) Three, getting yourself to the next gig or social event is a real challenge sometimes. (Fix your car yourself and save money!) Four, no matter what you do, someone, somewhere, knows about it and is planning to use it against you. (Learn what plans the FBI has for you!). Writing Machines N. Katherine Hayles 144 pages, $17.95 The MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu This intriguing little book delves into the semantics, culture, and literary theory of technology and language. Specifically, Hayles, professor of English and Design/Media Arts at UCLA, examines how the representation of ideas in text and print has been affected by the design opportunities of technology. Conversely, she also touches upon the ways in which ideas themselves and their expressions through language have been impacted by new methods of publication. Working with graphic designer Anne Burdick, the act of reading this book also replicates closely some of the manifestations of the theory. When discussing the hypertext classic, "Lexia to Perplexia" by Talan Memmott, Hayles's own text is graphically shaped by emphasis and interruptions, illustrating the combinational emotional resonance of joined form and content. "The implication for studies of technology and literature is that the materiality of inscription thoroughly interpenetrates the represented world. Even when technology does not appear as a theme, it is woven into the fictional world through the processes that produce the literary work as a material artifact." Highly recommended as a potent thought bubble that can burst into any kind of writer's head, filling them with revolutionary ideas. Certified Flash MX Designer Study Guide Christopher Hayes 116 pages, $29.99 Macromedia Press www.peachpit.com www.macromedia.com A concise, well-focused training course for designers who wish to cap their Macromedia Flash MX expertise with certification. If you're already using Flash as part of your Web design toolkit, this book could be used as a refresher course for the key components such as importing graphics and sound or using the drawing tools. Each short chapter ends with a series of questions that will train you to think more professionally about how you use Flash. If your career demands it - in a client-based field, for example, that is highly competitive - you may consider taking the Certified Macromedia Flash MX Designer Exam. This books primes you for the exam and, as a bonus, includes a coupon for a 15% discount on taking the exam from the Macromedia testing partner. More information about the book is at www.forta.com/books/0321126955. Introduction To AVID XPRESS DV 3.5 Effects $39.99 Creating Graphics For AVID EXPRESS DV 3.5 With Adobe Photoshop 7 $44.99 AVID XPRESS DV 3.5 Editing $49.99 Avid Educational Series www.avid.com/education [Sorry, no page counts for these books. They use the antiquated "tech" system of numbering by chapter+page. The first is the smallest, however; the third the largest.] One of the most robust multimedia editing systems gets a comprehensive training course in these three manuals directly from Avid. Starting with AVID XPRESS DV 3.5 EDITING, the novice is taken through carefully detailed step-by-step instructions from the very basics ("Press the Power/On key," "Create a new Project"), rapidly progressing to basic editing, adding audio, trimming images, and color adjustment. By the end of the first book you'll be winging your way through video and audio editing with confidence. The GRAPHICS and EFFECTS books are more in-depth training of the intricacies involved with blending, layers, ghosting appearances, and all sorts of possible transitions. There's much more in these books, of course, and all three include CD-ROMs (Macintosh and PC compatible) that include examples and exercises. I like the approach of this type of training. Very streamlined and linear, without excess verbiage. Follow the numbers and you'll get it right. SAMS Teach Yourself To Create Web Pages In 24 Hours Ned Snell 397 pages, $24.99 Sams www.samspublishing.com Absolute Beginner's Guide To Creating Web Pages Todd Stauffer 368 pages, $18.95 Que www.quepublishing.com Laugh if you want, but there is still a great need for basic books like these. Even among some Web designers I know! Both do a competent job of explaining the fundamentals of Web page design, from tables to formatting text to animations to making links, and on and on. There are no revelations here. But there is a smooth encyclopedic approach that gives newbies a chance to get into the game without embarrassment. There are differences between the two, certainly, but the choice would mostly come down to sensibility. ABSOLUTE BEGINNER'S GUIDE is more gonzo, humorous, with funnier graphics and wise-ass tips and tricks. The SAMS approach is more systematic, run by the clock, with a clearer path to its goal. As a personal choice, I'd take the Beginner for its style sheet explanations; Sams for animation, sound, and video. But that's just me. The Sams book does include a CD-ROM with a so-called "starter kit" - Netscape Navigator, selection of JPEG graphics, and trial versions of Paint Shop Pro 7 and HTML Assistant Pro 2000. Operating System Fundamentals D. Irtegov 498 pages, $54.95 Charles River Media www.charlesriver.com A complex system demands a comprehensive yet understandable - i.e., simple - method of understanding how the system works. Irtegov's comprehensive yet understandable textbook on operating systems delves deeply into fundamental concepts such as binary arithmetic, machine languages, and virtual memory. He also provides software developers and programmers a strong grounding in the diversity of operating systems, from DOS to UNIX to what he terms virtual systems like VMWare for machines with x86 architecture. With extensive, almost encyclopedic descriptions of multiprocessor architectures, parallelism, and peripherals, this is a near-complete course on the OS world that should make even the most expert computer geek feel like an eager student once again. Absolute Beginner's Guide To Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 Lisa Lee 415 pages, $18.95 Que www.quepublishing.com The easy image-editing capability of Photoshop Elements has made it a very popular program for non-technical types,including photographers and graphic designers. But even sophisticated users of the full-featured Photoshop can appreciate Elements' quick tools for managing and enhancing photos. Lisa Lee's eminently friendly and readable book guides the uninitiated through the basics. There are some valuable tips on customization of the product, which many folks neglect. It can make life so much easier! The sections on experimenting with composites and creating complex images stretch the capability of Elements to their max; they include some very creative ideas. However, if you're verging on more a production-line use of the image manipulation tools here, you'll probably graduate to the standard Photoshop software. Photoshop Elements 2, though, at $99, is a bargain for someone who needs a bit more than just the basics. MAC OS X For UNIX Geeks Brian Jepson and Ernest E. Rothman 198 pages, $24.95 O'Reilly www.oreilly.com This little book is packed with tremendous details important to the large segment of Unix programmers who have migrated to the Apple Mac OS X for its cool development environment. Although there are similarities to the hacking code between Mac OS X and Unix systems, there are enough pitfalls and minefields that make a guide like this valuable. It starts with comparisons and similarities, such as shells and services, then wends its way through directories, groups, and the system library. By the time you get to "Building The Darwin Kernel," frankly, they've left me behind, but probably not the legions of those who'll appreciate the tone of the authors' constant challenges: "Just because you can build your kernel, does that mean you should?" Windows XP Annoyances: Tips, Secrets and Solutions David A. Karp 564 pages, $29.95 O'Reilly www.oreilly.com The author has worked with the Windows platform since 1995; "I've developed a healthy love-hate relationship." Whether it's truly healthy is debatable, but Karp is definitely a Windows expert who has compiled more real-world solutions to horrors, errors, and confusing functionalities than almost anyone. O'Reilly's own promo for the book asks, "Are you annoyed by Windows XP?" Sorry, but it seems there must be some masochism here for the multitude of Windows users who constantly complain about the product yet insist on struggling through with it. They'll willing to cobble together almost any combination of fixes to get it to work. I very much enjoyed his lengthy appendix of Error Messages, otherwise known as the Blue Screen of Death. Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture Geert Lovink 383 pages, $27.95 MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu A good dark read. DARK FIBER is a warning shot to those who ever held dreams about the power of the Internet to change society. Lovink is a Dutch cybermedia critic who understands how the dark veil of corporate and governmental control is changing the once-promising freedom of the 'Net. "Internet cultureŠgot easily crushed between popular imagination and equally unrealistic economic models." But he doesn't mourn, he organizes. His collection of essays, reconstituted email dialogs, and other short pieces represent an attempt to assess the current Internet Webscape in view of its recent historical development. He doesn't so much prognosticate as illuminate, such as when he discusses email or push technology. What were once breakthrough technologies devolved into business-as-usual tools that didn't change the world, they simply added another aspect of what was already there. That doesn't denigrate the revolutionary potential that still resides in technology, but it puts a realistic frame around what is still possible. This is an important book for anyone who is concerned about what the world and its relation to cyberspace will be when it has passed out of our hands and into the next generation. |
|
Home | Organization | Events | News | Art | Jobs
|
