Having the courage to be different

If you type Branding into Google, you will find 1,330,000 references. Everyone knows about it, talks about it, but few have created a successful brand and can explain to others how they did it. Marty Neumeier has and can. He explains how to do it in simple stages avoiding jargon and confusion. This is not a 'padded' book, I read it in two sittings.<br /><br />He writes beautifully with a full knowledge and appreciation of the next question on the reader's lips. <br />I particularly liked how he used the running example of a fledgling company throughout the book, bringing to life its stage by stage growth and illustrating how ground-breaking differentiation was achieved. <br /><br />This is an essential book for designers and clients who need to demystify the branding process, and it will help them generate the vision and courage needed to create a unique brand.

Excellent reference that demystifies a contentious subject

This was much-needed.

Curtis Preston has taken on a subject that, even in the disinformation-stuffed world of IT, stands out as one of the least understood (or most mis-understood - if you can make the distinction).

There is plenty of nonsense spoken about SANs and NAS, where they differ, and where they coincide. In good old O'Reilly style, this volume gives a balanced opinion and an excellent place to start.

If you htink your job will take you to a place where you will be having dialogue on the subject of Storage Networks, a skim of this volume will serve you well.

Fantastic History of Computing

A hack: a neat or smart way of fixing or implementing something. This definition was in use in MIT in the late fifties in the MIT Tech Railroad Club where young engineers would devise ways of controlling their large model layout. Also in MIT were some of the first large computers and these young men (pretty exclusively so) were drawn to these behemoths like bugs to a flame. Hours were spent writing and debugging code. It wasn't easy going at the start as some of these machines had no i/o devices such as monitors, but these young men were bitten by the bug and became devoted to the cause.

The first section of the book describes the rise of the original computer hacker, and the Hacker Ethos that came with it. Software was free to all, and if you make an improvement to someone elses code, you were welcome to do so. But these young people were a priviledged few as hacking was limited to those with access to these college machines.

In the second part of the book, based mainly in the seventies, we see hacking being applied to hardware and the creation of the first home computers. The first was the Altair, which had no keyboard, but spread like wildfire. People spent ages writing programs for it and explored all it's possibilities. It's here that we meet Bill Gates, a young programmer asked to write a BASIC compiler for the machine. The hacker ethos of software being free for all didn't sit well with Mr. Gates and he wrote a letter to a popular computing magazine at the time, explaining that since he wrote the code, wasn't he entitled to some payment. Mr Gates doesn't really appear again, but that small glimpse of him seems so true.

At this time a club for computing afficionados, the Homebrew club came into existence and here many of the best and brightest would converse for ages, swapping ideas and experience. Among them was Steve Wozniak, who would create the first Apple and truly bring computing to the masses.

The third section of the book moves back to software, and the companies that sprang up in the eighties to provide games and utilities for the home computer user. In this section, the abandonment of the hacker ethos becomes clear. Companies, such as Sierra, were founded by hackers, but in order to grow and develop, something had to be left behind, and one such thing was the belief in free software.

This is a great book covering three influential sections of computing history. The descriptions of the people involved are highly captivating and it is hard to put this book down. If you remember the first apples, ataris and the apple mac, and how glamorous and liberating they were at the time, this book fills you in on all the details that went into constructing these revolutionary machines, and how they were shaped by the people behind them. If you have any interest at all in computing history, then this is a must read book.

A good starting point, should go further

Jakob is really trying to hurry the web forwards into useful maturity, and who can blame him. Many designers who come from a purely artistic background will hate Jakob and this book, because they will think it amputates their creativity. They would be right, and Jakob would make no excuses for that. One of the reasons why the web is such a nasty place to be most of the time, is that different sites do the same things in different ways. In this book, Jakob and Marie attempt to identify the common components that most websites share, (such as company logo, navigation area, news area, about us link, search function, legal wording etc) and recommend a consistent way of displaying these common components. These recommendations are based not on what they think you should do, but based on what most other websites are doing already. If 84% of sites have their company logo in the top left hand corner, that is a pretty good indication that a similar percentage of users will expect to find the company logo to appear in the top left hand corner, which is a pretty good indication that it's a good idea to put your company logo in the top left hand corner.

It's a handy book. Yes it's quite repetitive, but in way that illustrates the point's he's making about standardisation. Jakob should go further. The Victorians started standardisation, and created standard time and weights and measures. Jakob should use his position to push web standardisation. He should examine sites deeper that the homepage. He should provide examples of information architectures that although will need to be adjusted from site to site, follow a similar structure that users will recognise and be able to navigate intuitively.

When users go to a site, they go there to achieve something. A significant proportion of the time taken to achieve their goal will be taken up by learning how to use the site. If sites are more standardised, the learning curve will be flatter, and the user will achieve his goal more effectively, more efficiently, and more satisfactorily. This book starts to set out those standards, and should be read by people designing sites.

Excellent coverage of an undercovered topic

Having used MOSS 2007 and WF since their beta timescales I've always struggled to find a source of useful information on this topic . . . enter"Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System".<br /><br />The book starts off basic, covering the concepts behind WF and workflows using SharePoint Designer. Then it gets down and dirty into the essentials like activity development, sequential workflows, state machine workflows, workflow forms and lots of other good stuff that you'll need to know should you want to write custom workflows for MOSS.<br /><br />Excellently covered and very informative and easy to follow - a must for a SharePoint developers bookshelf.

This is the debate of the decade

I read Carr's original 2003 article in the Harvard Business Review and could see it would stir up the 21st Century debate over IT and competitive advantage. It certainly did that, with just about every IT commentator supporting or deriding his argument that IT is now mature enough to become an accepted part of corporate infrastructure - much like the plumbing or electricity supply to an office. He has a good point about IT as a maturing industry and it is well-argued in this compact book. I don't agree with everything he says, but anyone involved in business today should be aware of the debate surrounding this book.

I don't feel being busy, how about you?

Again Limoncelli hits bulls eye. Because nature of system administration we admins are tired, in bad mood and late. At least one can think that's the only way how to deal daily tasks but no it is. The book says you how to get organized which leads to making small miracles... at least if that is what you want. Anyway you'll have more time and less stress after following instructions of the book.<br />

An important step change in how to approach IT delivery

This book is an excellent introduction to Brownfield IT development with a realistic approach to moving to its vision. The book is well written and very easy to read - I managed to digest it easily in four train journey sittings over three days (pun intended).<br /><br />I am a colleague and friend of Kevin and Richard. I have worked with them on engagements in the past, including those adopting Brownfield techniques. I can honestly say this book is based on real IBM experiences with our customers. We are fortunate in our business of engaging many different types of customers with many different IT environments. We get to see the recurring problems they face and frequently see IT practices that resonate strongly with the problems laid out in the book. It clearly lays out the vision and solutions to the problem.<br /><br />I wholeheartedly recommend that if you are an IT executive and technical leader who grapples with a multitude of IT projects that you read this book. By page 41 you can associate with the authors and the problem statement from which the Brownfield vision emerged is obvious. By the time you are racing through Part II you will be thinking about how you can adopt Brownfield techniques in your particular context.<br /><br />

Like Lessig, but in a very broad context

First off, if you're looking for a nice introduction to what happens when law meets the internet, this is not your book. If this is your first dip into the debate, you're looking for Code or The Future of Ideas, both by Lawrence Lessig. Like those books (especially TFOI) it's big on the idea of the internet as a wonderful platform for free expression and innovation, both economically and socially motivated. Like them, it stresses the importance of openness and the commons in maximising the internet's potential and so wants open spectrum, open code and less hasty and restrictive intellectual property law. Unlike them, it can be very heavy going at times. <br /><br />That's not really a criticism, because Benkler's written something much more self-consciously theoretical than most of the other cyber-law stuff you'll find on the market. His big idea is that the really fundamental change that the internet brings is social production - the fusion between social instincts, altruism and OCD that leads people to work on Linux, contribute to Wikipedia and write product reviews on Amazon. He then looks at what exactly this changes for economic production, democratic participation, cultural freedom and development, and argues that we need to do more to recognise and protect the benefits that it brings.<br /><br />If did have a criticism, it would be that the book formalizes and thus labours what may seem like rather obvious points after the third variation. On the other hand, that's the nature of the beast if you're looking for a thorough academic treatment of these issues. The issues addressed are hugely important for anyone interested in economics or politics in the information age, and this is the most definitive treatment of them so far. Probably not one for the airport lounge, though.

Complete online marketing resource

One might wonder how long a book having to do with online advertising strategy will last, considering the rapid pace of change in technology and online rules, but Joe Plummer, Steve Rappaport, Taddy Hall and Robert Barocci focus on strategies that are not particularly vulnerable to time or tech changes. They take online advertising in the direction of other sophisticated mass media advertising, including targeting specific markets precisely, and using multiple channels and other audience-oriented tactics. With this book's information and abundant real-life examples, marketing and brand managers can create winning plays. getAbstract thinks they will want this valuable tool on their desks so they can build their brands online and do it right.

fascinating

<br />I really enjoyed this book. Scott has a great writing style - friendly and informative, well suited to the task in hand. What could have been a dull history of innovation has been turned into a short, punchy work. He manages to pack a great deal into the 192 pages; examples of how innovation works, where innovation comes from, and debunks several popular myths of innovation, pointing out that whilst there is a 'eureka' moment, there's a whole lot of hard work which lead up to it in the first place.<br /><br />I read this book on a train journey, and found myself picking back through it on the return journey. It's jam-packed with interesting anecdotes and information. Inspirational too - it put the idea of writing and where ideas come from in a new light.<br /><br />Recommended reading. Top stuff.<br />

fails to deliver

Brought this book as a intro to the PIC18 (been using 16's for years), and in particular for the USB and CAN coverage.<br /><br />While it gives a good intro to the PIC18, it spends too much time looking at demo/development boards and ICSP programming tools from various manufacturers, before arbitarily choosing to use MikroC and its own ICSP pod, no reasons given. Choosing to use Microchip's own MPLAB abd MPLAB C18 would have been a better choice, as the user could then use the low cost Pickit2 pod instead of one costing twice as much.<br /><br />The sections covering USB and CAN failed to deliver the required information, and prefered to hide behind pre written functions specific to MikroC instead of explaining the requiste registers and how the are configured. The section covering RTOS is not worthy of being included in the title, again just skims the surface with no real substance.<br /><br />Overall a waste of money.<br /><br />