| |||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||
|
|
[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 . |
|
March 2003 HIGH VALUE IT CONSULTING: 12 Keys To A Thriving Practice Sanjiv Puba and Bob Delaney 441 pages,$39.99 Mc-Graw Hill/Osborne www.osborne.com Now that just about everyone in IT is a consultant these days, it's worth considering professional management of that independent career. If you came to consulting by default or by design, HIGH VALUE CONSULTING is an essential primer to a comprehensive range of business practices. Authors Puba and Delaney offer a schematic and detailed look at everything from self-marketing to accounting to client satisfaction to project management and even legal considerations. The book's initial chapters concentrate on analyzing your reasons for being in business, how you approach defining yourself for the potential customer base, and what it takes to develop a robust but flexible marketing strategy. They devote the bulk of the book to how to manage the actual "engagement" with a client, from pre-planning to consensus building and agreement mechanisms, to project controls during design and implementation, risk and legal considerations, and tactics for successful project close-down. You're also given good tips on post-project client relationships. PHOTOSHOP 7 WOW! BOOK Jack Davis 471 pages, $49.99 Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com The Wow! series continues to dazzle with impressive production values, great photo illustrations and layout, and cutting-edge discussions of the latest tools and tricks available in PhotoShop. It's hard to say much without repeating what reviews of previous editions have said about Jack Davis' achievement. The new edition obviously adds a wealth of instruction in the Photoshop 7 innovations, such as the asset management function of the File Browser, the new Auto Color feature that can solve color casting with one click, the remapping processes and rollovers palette available in ImageReady, and even the new Spell Checker. Many Photoshop users will find the companion CD-ROM most valuable, with its "before" and "after" image files, presets and goodies, and various 3rd party demos. PREFIGURING CYBERCULTURE: An Intellectual History Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson, Alessio Cavallaro, editors 322 pages, $32.95 The MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu Continuing the intellectual discussion of the impact that the World Wide Web has had on society, PREFIGURING CYBERCULTURE compiles an impressive though often dense assortment of academic essays that take a long view of technology impact on human history. The tactic mostly seems to analyze key publishings and documents during the ascent of cyberculture, including William Gibson's books and Donna Haraway's "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" from 1985. The latter is described by Zoe Sofoulis as "the seismic center of an earthquake that jolted many out of their categorical certainties as it shifted the terrain about culture and identity in the late 20th century." Did you miss that? Now you have the opportunity to review documents like that and films like "The Matrix" to judge their perceptive value in setting the stage for the first Internet bubble and all that comes after, into the real future (rather than the imagined future, which has many problems, not the least of which is how imaginary futures anachronistically reflect their contemporary origins). Pretty typically interesting is Margaret Werthem's essay, "Internet Dreaming: A Utopia For All Seasons" that looks at the 16th Century and Thomas More's "Utopia" in parallel to the rise and fall of dot.com market valuation. POCKET GUIDE TO TECHNICAL WRITING, 3rd Edition William S. Pfeiffer 225 pages, $18.00 Pearson Education/Prentice Hall vig.prenhall.com/ An extremely useful, and illuminating, little book that goes right to the critical issues of how to craft business writing in almost all situations. This is NOT just about writing scientific or software reports (such as would use FrameMaker); it's about writing anything needed in the business world, from memos to proposals to project designs to sales reports and feasibility studies. It quickly gives you the concepts of how to gauge your readership and craft the appropriate message. Helpful chapters on structural arrangement, graphics, fonts, and formats are balanced with practical tips on the more intangible aspects of the entire writing process for speed and style considerations. There's a large section devoted to examples of various print and design formats suitable for specific situations. There's an even larger section called the "Writing Handbook," which you'll be reaching for frequently with references on everything to the proper use of quotation marks, the differences between "like" and "as," avoiding sexist terminology, and even common measurement abbreviations. DATABASE DESIGN FOR MERE MORTALS, 2nd Edition Michael J. Hernandez 611 pages, $49.99 Addison-Wesley www.awprofessional.com One of the best books I've seen that presents the complexity of database design with the simplicity of a good basic beginning, from the concepts of databases to clear explanations of the terminology. Hernandez also presents his data in a manner that does not rely on using one kind of database as a model. It doesn't matter if you have to confront SQL Server or MS Access or even FileMaker; the explanations are generalized but specific to almost all programs. The accompanying CD-ROM includes sample databases, design guidelines, and documentation. BUILD YOUR OWN SERVER Tony C. Caputo 343 pages, $29.99 McGraw-Hill/Osborne www.osborne.com Many consultants and freelancers use the resources of two or more computers. Or perhaps they work with sub-contractors in a loose network. At some point, they may be faced with the question as to whether it would be more efficient and cheaper to install their own server. Clearly there is an advantage to being able to locally manage connectivity between wired and wireless networks, as well as to create rationality between all the external devices like Zip drives, printers, faxes, and CD-RWs. Tony Caputo proposes the BUILD YOUR OWN SERVER route for this solution. Not only does a self-made package cost less than a retail product, it allows for greater personalization and flexibility in functionality and future expansion possibilities. This is also an excellent general introduction to servers, whether or not you need your own. The information is clearly and concisely presented for all user types, with needed chapters covering the basics, details on the operating system and CPU, and extensive background on memory and video. GOOGLE HACKS Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest 329 pages, $24.95 LINUX SERVER HACKS Rob Flickenger 221 pages, $24.95 O'Reilly hacks.oreilly.com www.oreilly.com O'Reilly is dedicating itself to making hacking a cool word again. Their new Hack Series offers "industrial-strength, real-world, tested solutions to practical problems" with books that allow users of various computer systems and tools the secrets and tips that will attempt to make their life much easier. LINUX SERVER HACKS and GOOGLE HACKS are two such titles that reflect the dual nature of the project: Linux for the specialist Linux administrator, Google for almost any Web or information generalist who wants to get the most out of the popular search engine. Both are entertaining reads, and both get down to the dirty business of detailed problem solving. In LINUX, you can deal with a forgotten console password or figure out the intricacies of IPIP tunneling encapsulation. In GOOGLE, you'll find extensive keyword discussions as well as odd but valuable functions such as getting Google search results via email and finding "large" sites rather than just "lucky" ones. If you work with either Linux or Google (and I suspect most of you do the latter, even those who specialize in the former), then you'll find hours of inspiration from these books. THE NEW MEDIA READER Noah Wardrip-Fuin and Nick Montfort, editors 823 pages, $45 MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu If you think that "new media" developed with the World Wide Web, think again. This new compendium of essential texts and critical documents points out the roadmap to new media starting more than 50 years ago. The value of the historical perspective allows for a clearer understanding of how everything from hypertext to 3D modeling to online communities to video games to digital art and beyond has evolved from technological and philosophical and cultural foundations. A wealth of material (with many of items very rare and hard to find) has been assembled from writers, thinkers, artists, and technologists, including Jorge Luis Borges, Tim Berners-Lee, Alan Turing, Marshall McLuhan, Bill Viola, Brenda Laurel, Nicholas Negroponte, and many more. A CD-ROM is included that visually documents the paradigm with more rare examples of early digital games, art, literary projects, software, and historic technological breakthroughs (the mouse, word processing, hyperlinks, video conferencing, and more). Essential for all multimedians. SOLITARY SEX: A Cultural History of Masturbation Thomas W. Laqueur 496 pages, $34 Zone Books mitpress.mit.edu No, I didn't include this just to make sure you were reading all of the NBMA newsletter! But it's worth pointing out this scholarly but none-too-dry survey of masturbation throughout the ages. It's a subject, after all, that many lonely computer geeks can identify with through innumerable late-night hacking sessions. No need to feel alone, any more! ADOBE PHOTOSHOP MASTER CLASS, 2nd Edition John Paul Caponigro 504 pages, $55 Adobe Press/Peachpit www.peachpit.com Many changes, updates, and additions grace the 2nd edition of photographer John Paul Caponigro's masterful Photoshop reference. This is an evolution of the technical creative path he took with the book's first edition, with an emphasis on understanding photography in the digital age. There are plenty of how tos here but the emphasis is on the wherefors and whys. That is, to get results you need to see clearly and understand how the functions of Photoshop impact our expectations of what vision really means. The elegant, clean design of the book is filled with sumptuous examples that continually point out how our conceptions of photography are always unconsciously being changed by the available tools. Clarity of purpose depends on being aware of all the potential ramifications of how we use the software to alter our assumed reality. Caponigro is really a strong evolutionist and he's perhaps more aware than anyone that the modern history of photography is being shaped by Photoshop as much as anything. SPINNING THE SEMANTIC WEB: Bringing The World Wide Web To Its Full Potential Dieter Fensel, James Hendler, Henry Lieberman, Wolfgang Wahlster, editors The MIT Press The MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu The World Wide Web is getting too big for its britches. There are over 3 billion static documents in the WWW used by more than 200 million users. This number was calculated at the beginning of 2002; maybe we're close to doubling that figure now. The Semantic Web is a structured development organized by leading institutions to improve the Web's ability to process relevant information for practical use by huge numbers of users. To do that requires new automatic methods of categorizing information, a renovation of hierarchical data structures, and the freedom of the technology to develop at its own pace, unencumbered by political or social strictures. SPINNING THE SEMANTIC WEB is an international anthology of technical, theoretical, and philosophic articles looking deeply into the road map that will take the world to a truly inclusive World Wide Web. The insightful foreword by Tim Berners-Lee gives a good background to what was part of the Web's "original hopes and dreams of 1989, but whose development has, until now, taken a back seat to the Web of multimedia human-readable material." Is this the end of multimedia? No, but it may be the end of multimedia as the principle access tool for interfacing with the Web. MULTIMEDIA DATABASES: An Object-Relational Approach Lynne Dunckley 452 pages, $54.99 Addison-Wesley www.it-minds.com www.awprofessional.com For anyone whose professional life is impacted by databases, MULTIMEDIA DATABASES is an essential primer for both novice and expert. Dunckley takes a steady academic approach to a complicated subject, starting with the basics with some honest answers about what is different about multimedia data (as opposed to data types of numbers, dates, and characters). There's also a worthy introduction to multimedia applications and data size, giving one a sure sense of the opportunities present and the challenges of any choices (or unwilled circumstances) one may find oneself in. Complexity rapidly ensues with object management, data manipulation, and architecture requirements, among many others. The book is relatively agnostic as regards databases, though there is an emphasis on SQL and Oracle, with very good tutorials throughout that put you through your retention paces. A CD-ROM includes exercises and solutions tied to chapters in the book; they allow you to actually use database management systems, such as MySQL, DB2, and Oracle SQL PLUS. DREAMWEAVER MX KILLER TIPS Joseph Lowery and Angels C. Buraglia 232 pages, $39.99 New Riders www.dwkillertips.copm www.newriders.com Once you've mastered Dreamweaver, you'll still find value in keeping this KILLER TIPS handy. Like others in this series, this is a collection of colorfully illustrated pages and paragraphs each devoted to a specific tip or insider trick. You won't necessarily learn how to use Dreamweaver from scratch, but you'll learn new efficiencies and shortcuts that will make it seem like you're using a vastly simplified Web-page editing tool. Chapters are arranged by primary functions - interface, CSS, tables, browser, layout, etc. - and within each are concise narratives written in a jocular manner that tutor you on over 300 different items. Example: "Layers as you like 'em" (adding a layer); "Can I see some identification please?" (ID attributes for HTML elements); "The client who must have hover" (kludge for normalizing browser colors); and "Watch out for killer octothorpes" (popups and their top-page return). VISUAL QUICKSTART GUIDE: FRAMEMAKER FOR WINDOWS & MACINTOSH 7 Victoria Thomas 417 pages, $21.99 Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com Technical editors, course developers, information architects, and others who need and use FrameMaker as their document authoring and management tool generally need to be kept up-to-date about improvements to the product. Version 7 incorporates XML authoring to its tool set, as well as the metadata standard, XMP, which makes document retrieval and content reuse much easier. A host of other improvements necessitates an updated Visual Quickstart Guide, and Peachpit has provided one, written by a wholeheartedly devoted FrameMaker fan, Victoria Thomas. You're in good hands. SPEED UP YOUR SITE: Web Site Optimization Andrew B. King 496 pages, $39.99 New Riders www.newriders.com www.WebSiteOptimization.com There's a crisis on the Web. It's too slow. What? What year is this? Seems that slow Web sites were an issue in 1996-1998, but now, isn't everyone on Broadband? Well, no. And the bulk of users who are still with 56K modems -- have found that Web page loading has gotten slower and slower with each passing year. It's even affected DSL and T-1 line users. They even complain about slow sites. Web pages are bigger, fatter, more complex than ever. That's the goal of SPEED UP YOUR SITE, to attack the bloat of HTML file sizes, JavaScript excess, and multimedia drag. This book actually reads as speedy as its goals in reaching for lean, swift operations. Concise, targeted chapters and paragraphs go right to the source. For example, in optimizing HTML code, tips include choosing the right "doctype," minimizing HTTP requests, omitting redundant tags, even eliminating white space. There's lots more here, too, and if you need convincing read the opening chapter that goes into the psychology of the user as well as the philosophy of Web flow. You'll really look at your Web site with new eyes. MySQL, 2nd Edition Paul DuBois 1219 pages, $49.99 Developer's Library/Sams Publishing www.developers-library.com The subtitle to this massive publication is, "The definitive guide to using, programming, and administering MySQL 4." And so it is. Well, at least Paul DuBois has been certain to cover every conceivable topic for every type of potential user of this relatively inexpensive, flexible, powerful relational database program in 1219 pages. As the Web becomes more tied into back-end systems at the enterprise level, the designer and developer encounter more situations where their basic design and HTML skills are stretched to include interface modules and functionality keyed to databases like MySQL. This is the book you'll want if you're faced with an implementation project and don't know where to start. The introductory chapters are an excellent tutorial on the open-sourced MySQL structural methods and query capabilities. Even if you've never worked with databases before, this is a clear-headed, non-hysterical approach that doesn't even require programming experience. And, if you're a well-heeled code geek, you won't feel left out. By the time you're into aspects of administration, directory, and replication servers, you'll feel like you're at home. ABSOLUTE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO EBAY Michael Miller 367 pages, $18.95 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO ACCESS 2002 Susan Sales Harkins and Mike Gunderloy 320 pages, $18.95 Que www.quepublishing.com As a semi-professional eBayer, I initially poo-poohed the idea of a "beginner's guide" to what seemed to me to be a pretty easy set of obvious functions to buy and sell stuff online. You may think this series is not worth your attention, too, as if the newbie connotation was beneath your dignity. Think again. It's true that these books have loads of information about the very basics. ("How to open a database." "How to bid." "Building your first table." "How to find items to sell.") On the other hand, a few minutes of exploring the eBay book reduced my superior sneer to a more level response as I was pleasantly surprised by very useful tips on sniping and how to avoid getting aced out of something I really wanted at the last moment. I hadn't thought of some of the things Miller brings up. Similarly, although I don't use Access, I appreciated the way the authors of that book described the method for publishing databased information onto the Web. In short, these are very useful books that may start at the beginner level but reach to expert level in the details. MAC OSX FOR WINDOWS USERS: A Switchers' Guide David Coursey 292 pages, $19.99 Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com Not too much to say about this book except that there's something ironic in the assumption that Windows users need a guide to the Mac. The current Apple ad campaign touts the ease of switching to the Mac as almost Zen in its simplicity and ease. One would think that the intuitive interface of the Mac would be a cinch after the interminable struggles that Windows users experience. But, perhaps, not being a Windows person, I've underestimated the warping sensibility that Microsoft instills in people who use their products for too long a time. Maybe they develop an alternate reality of what constitutes smooth operation, a quick file search, or an easy way to place content wherever they want. David Coursey has a telling line early in this book, "I never forget the computer when I'm using Windows; it won't let me." When using a Mac, you tend to merge with your work, and the hardware and OS become more or less transparent. So, I suppose there is a need for a switcher's guide (don't know about that misplaced apostrophe in the subtitle). Former Windows users need to be coached to . . . let go. Let go of their grief, their knockabout shifting, directory designating, endless loading functions . . . It's all about unlearning an unnatural physical functioning and getting back to natural instincts. They have to learn to just click and go. |
|
Home | Organization | Events | News | Art | Jobs
|
