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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 . |
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June 2003 PREDATORS AND PROFITS: 100+ Ways For Investors To Protect Their Nest Eggs Martin Howell 265 pages, $24.95 Reuters www.reuters.com At the risk of closing the barn door after the horses have fled, Martin Howell's book instructs us on "more than 170 ways to avoid the CEOs who cheat and deceive, the Wall Street bankers who promote investments they know are bad, the boards who have been bought off, the see-no-evil accountants, and those members of the media who seem to be in on everything but may know nothing." In the world of the stock market and investing, there's always a tomorrow, and tomorrow always brings the opportunity to be taken advantage of, to lose most of everything, and to vow never to take your money out of the mattress again. This is really a practical guide to how you can play the money game with more than blind faith. All the big cautionary rules to follow are noted as Red Flags, and even though they mostly seem based on common sense, we all know that common sense usually goes out the window when even a little human greed is added to the equation. Instructions range from the basic ("Avoid companies that are too reliant on one or two of anything"), to the background information one needs to make a judicious decision ("Directors who don't own much of their company's stock"), all way to the archeology behind corporate decision making ("If companies use their own assumptions to assess the value of contacts"). This is an operating manual for investment survival. Some of us surely wish we had this book before the value of our investments went to less than 1 percent of the original purchase price. (Who, me??) DEVELOPING ONLINE GAMES: An Insider's Guide Jessica Mulligan and Bridgette Patrovsky 495 pages, $49.95 New Riders www.newriders.com The business of online gaming has had a long, checkered career as a component of the overall online services industry. The creation of Internet-based multi-player games goes back at least to 1969, but it entered the mainstream through BBs and proprietary services in the late '80s with fantasy worlds like Island of Kesmai (on Compuserve) and Legends of the Red Dragon. Now there are millions world-wide who log on to assume an alternate identity and slay dragons, fight with armies, rescue alien damsels, and other imaginative scenarios. It's also big business, though often bruised by mismanagement, poor design, and ineffective marketing. Mulligan and Patrovsky have enough history in online gaming that when they excoriate game developers and their business executive partners, they know what they're talking about. This is a hard-as-nails look at the industry's faults, errors, and great promise. Anyone even remotely touched by this industry ought to take a look at how they lay open the problems companies have had from the conceptual side (overreaching feature sets; failure to let the game evolve from user experience) to the business end (stifling hosting arrangements; the impact of eBay payment structures on costs; launch timing). There's revealing stuff about how the online community can be directed and abused, and how to manage renegade players. If you're interested in getting into this field, here's a good beginning, and a whiff of reality check. A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO CURL Kevin Hanegan 399 pages, $41.95 Charles River Media, Inc. www.charlesriver.com Curl may ultimately allow for a seamless integration of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into one great common Web-building language. Introduced in 2001, this construction language is fully object-oriented, very flexible, and client-machine focused. Kevin Hanegan has produced one of the early guides to using Curl, and it's well worth the effort by anyone who programs code for Web pages. Explanations and illustrations are very logically ordered, and there's nothing overwhelming here to anyone with a minimal understanding of basic Web page development tools. Included is a CD_ROM with extensive code samples, projects, all the images from the book, and software. A HISTORY OF MODERN COMPUTING, 2nd Edition Paul E. Ceruzzi 459 pages, $22.95 The MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu In another vivid example of not knowing where we're going unless we know where we've been, Paul Ceruzzi has revised his classic and still-engaging account of the modern computer revolution, looking at the products, people, and companies. In the future, we'll probably look at the period that took us from UNIVAC to PLATO to Altair to Xerox Alto to Apple II to the Apple Macintosh as the late 20th Century version of the Wild West. There were shoot-outs and robberies, territorial wars and explosive growth, brilliant exploits and vast industry conspiracies. Here is the era in all its glory, disgrace, false starts, bold moves, culture shock, and social transformation. Neat pictures, too. (Maybe you're one of those folk who get a tear in their eye when they see a shot of an old IMSAI 8080 or Altair 8800.) OUTLOOK POCKET GUIDE Walter Glenn 186 pages, $12.95 O'Reilly www.oreilly.com To many folks, Microsoft's Outlook software program is an essential daily resource. To others, it's just an icon to avoid on the way to using Word. Like other virtual organizers, Outlook is only as good as its utilization. This latest O'Reilly pocket guide allows one to take full advantage of the calendaring, scheduling, journal, and contact manager aspects of Outlook, with an emphasis on getting up and functioning quickly with a minimum of explanatory background. Want to change the default in an email account? Do this, then this, and that. Print a contact? Here's the button to push. View journal entries in a table? Here are the three pre-defined ways of doing that. So, no need to be afraid any longer of wielding the power that's available through Outlook. The O'Reilly Pocket Guide will give you courage. THE UNUSUALLY USEFUL WEB BOOK June Cohen 388 pages, $35 DESIGNING WITH WEB STANDARDS Jeffrey Zeldman 436 pages, $35 New Riders www.newriders.com These two books represent part of the new maturity in Web development. The bursting of the Internet bubble has brought a realism to Web design and function that can only benefit the industry in the long run. What can Web site really do? What does it take to get desired results? What are the actually abilities of the technology? These questions take a more seasoned analysis to answer fully and honestly in the post-doc.com era. June Cohen, a founder of HotWired.com and Webmonkey.com, distills the experience and hard-fought wisdom of nearly 50 Web pioneers and major players to create a compelling, comprehensive guide to Web development success. It's not a technical manual, but a business-case companion. The subtitle is "Everything we've learned about why sites succeed," and to that end there is incredibly practical, useful advice on everything from strategizing the purpose of a site to getting a site up to speed to optimizing how a site will be found by potential customers. There's a plethora of anecdotes that offer head-slapping "lightbulb" revelations, like "Why you should follow design conventions" (Jeffrey Vreen saying you have to "know why conventions work before you can start to break them") and "Why you should follow Web conventions" ("The most persuasive argument for conventions is a good site," from Jeffrey Zeldman). Many funny, pointed cartoons abound, as well as numerous lists that are more useful than merely handy. Jeffrey Zeldman, in fact, expands upon Web development to look boldly towards the future. In building sites that adhere to Web standards, sites will be able to break out of the "build, break, rebuild" cycle that has to happen each time a new browser format emerges or major publishing software tools take over. Zeldman is concerned about universality and common languages; he is a strong proponent of building for tomorrow, not today. Implementing sites with XHTML and CSS can introduce a progressive grammar for development that will encompass diversity in everything from browsers to user abilities. As he states in his introduction, "Because the software through which the Web is viewed finally supports standards, it makes sense to learn about and correctly use them." The benefits are more efficiency, greater flexibility, vastly improved cost-versus-benefit ratio, and much less use of aspirin, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen. MACROMEDIA FREEHAND FOR WINDOWS & MACINTOSH Sandee Cohen 466 pages, $21.99 Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com Freehand is a powerful design tool with applications appropriate for both online and offline development. It can be used well with imports from Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, and can be smoothly integrated with Flash to turn static creations into animations. This latest Visual Quickstart Guide from Peachpit starts with the basics and rapidly guides you through the essential operations of working with the knife tool, the mirror, blending, word blocks, and fancy strokes like calligraphy. If you're new to Freehand, and you start at the beginning, you'll be a semi-pro by lunchtime, if not sooner. If you're brushing up on skills and learning new tricks, you'll be a master by mid-morning coffee break. BUILDING EMBEDDED LINUX SYSTEMS: Concepts, Techniques, Tricks, and Traps Karim Yaghmour 392 pages, $44.95 O'Reilly www.oreilly.com I won't pretend I'm interested much in the topic of building an embedded system, let alone a Linux one. When I first looked at this book, I was barely able to stop myself from keeling over with glazed eyes. No doubt those of you who are into building embedded systems will view my reaction with disgust, as well you should. These kinds of systems are definitely a trend for development, and the freedom of the open-source movement makes using Linux a logical choice. Karim Yaghmour's one of the gurus in the field, and his book is evidently "the first in-depth, hardcore guide to putting together an embedded system based on the Linux kernel." I can tell you that there's enough guts here to make the patient walk and talk, with a true memory of the culture from whence it sprang. That is, there's enough background on FireWire, I/O requirements, distribution, patent issues, storage methods, GRUB with DiskOnChip devices, and other considerations to give even the most sophisticated developer a new lease on life. If you are an experienced embedded system developer and you want to start using Linux, there's no other book for you. THE GLOBAL INTERNET ECONOMY Bruce Kogut, editor 520 pages, $39.95 The MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu When Netscape debuted in 1994 it allowed regular humans to think of the World Wide Web as a vehicle for entertainment, communication, and commerce. It also allowed corporations and governments to worry about, capitalize on, and transcend physical, political, and economic borders. The networked world had implications for corporate and government culture. And it is still shaking up the systems that manage the worldwide flow of economic activity. THE GLOBAL INTERNET ECONOMY takes a large look at how technological innovations of the past 10+ years have transformed individual nations and their peoples, and how national boundaries (both real and social) have flexed and mutated. This is an eye-opening if often a bit too academic exercise that asks questions such as, "Is the Silicon Valley model relevant in Japan?" and looks at the institutional issues affecting new technology firms getting off the ground in Germany. You don't have to be an economist to be interested in the topic. It's critically important for social activists, for example, to be savvy to the changes taking place at the corporate and government levels due to the leveraged power of the Internet. If you work with an e-commerce focus, you can't help be influenced by the dynamic global forces coming into play. This is a book that helps keep your head above the swirling waters. THE MAC IS NOT A TYPEWRITER, 2nd Edition Robin Williams 88 pages, $12.99 Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com This slim volume is extremely crucial for anyone who uses the Macintosh for printed documents. Whether you are a graphic designer, desktop editor, book publisher, writer, this book is as essential as Strunk & White. Robin Williams distills as much detail in these pages on the fine points of typographical style that you'll find anywhere in much larger books. Perhaps fine kerning or proper s uperscript placement are lost art forms, but these and many other textual tips, rules, and aesthetics make such a difference in the final product that it is easy to tell the professionals from the amateurs. THE MEL COMPANION: MAYA SCRIPTING FOR 3D ARTISTS David Stripinis 468 pages, $49.95 Charles River Media www.charlesriver.com Maya 3D is a cutting-edge animation software package from Alias Wavefront that graphic artists and Web developers have been using for awhile in creating digital imagery, animation, and visual effects. It's relatively heavy on the programming side of things; perhaps the learning curve is daunting for more purely art-oriented designers. With this new Mel Companion guide to Maya, the fear factor is mitigated by a coherent approach to learning not only the software functions but the underlying code base, too. Apply yourself to learning this powerful scripting language and once you're over the hump (probably after you've gone through Chapter 6 - Geometry), you'll find yourself empowered and completely (or nearly so) ready to let the right side of your brain start dreaming of amazing creative solutions. An attached CD-ROM contains tutorial and working scripts based on the projects discussed in the book. C++ In A Nutshell Ray Lischner 791 pages, $39.95 Publisher www.oreilly.com C++ remains a standard language that programmers almost universally use in building systems and applications. It's hugely powerful, and hugely complicated at the upper reaches. (Many people can take a couple lessons and be up and running on C++ without needing to know all its potential.) The latest "nutshell" book from O'Reilly is an essential reference source to C++ in all its glory. If you are a programmer already using the language, even at a basic level, you'll find easy-to-understand guides to such essentials as type conversions and templates, with more useful revelations than can be comprehended at one sitting. It's a book that should remain at hand's reach anytime one is using C++. THE PHOTOSHOP BOOK FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHERS Scott Kelby 358 pages, $39.99 New Riders www.newriders.com This book belies its sumptuous beautiful presentation with a practical heart: how to use PhotoShop more effectively by professionals and expert consumers. It's not a soup-to-nuts beginner-to-expert encyclopedia. It starts out by suggesting you burn your raw digital photos onto CD, leaps into valuable suggestions for organizing the files, then it's into resizing, cropping, eliminating "red eye," adjusting RGB flesh tones, adding motion, fixing underexposures, etc., etc., etc. There are a myriad of real-life situations discussed here that can be addressed by often-simple yet expert uses of PhotoShop's tool set. Kelby is an ingratiating writer, using wit and humor along with a master teacher's patience and clarity in the explanations. |
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