Michael J. Ross writes "Despite being perhaps the most popular Web language in use, PHP has for much of its history been criticized for not offering the full capabilities of object-oriented programming (OOP). But with the release of version 5, PHP introduced a robust object model, and made it easier for its proponents to create well-architected Web sites and applications. In turn, the new OOP capabilities have facilitated additional best practices, such as design patterns, test-driven development, continual refactoring, and HTML templates. These topics and more are explored in the book PHP in Action: Objects, Design, Agility."

Ben Rothke writes "First the good news — in a fascinating and timely new book Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software, David Rice clearly and systematically shows how insecure software is a problem of epic proportions, both from an economic and safety perspective. Currently, software buyers have very little protection against insecure software and often the only recourse they have is the replacement cost of the media. For too long, software manufactures have hidden behind a virtual shield that protects them from any sort of liability, accountability or responsibility. Geekonomics attempts to stop them and can be deemed the software equivalent of Unsafe at Any Speed. That tome warned us against driving unsafe automobiles; Geekonomics does the same for insecure software." Read on for Ben's take on this book.

stoolpigeon writes "As a dba, I'm constantly looking to learn more about networking and system administration. Both can have quite an impact on the performance of my piece of the puzzle. A welcome addition to the materials to help me learn about networking is Carla Schroder's "Linux Networking Cookbook". This book is just right for the person like myself who enjoys learning by getting hands-on experience with the technology. The scope is wide and so someone with a great depth of networking experience may find that the treatments of each is a bit shallow. On the other hand, that wide scope means this book may hold something new, even for someone with some level of experience." Read on for the rest of JR's review.

David Martinjak writes "Linux Firewalls, authored by Michael Rash and published by No Starch Press, covers five main topics: traditional packet filtering with iptables, port scan detection, snort rule translation, port knocking, and log visualization. At first I considered only skimming the chapters regarding iptables packet filtering. I have a good amount of experience with iptables, and have been running it for several years. Thankfully I decided to give the first chapter a good read. Right from the start, the book presented valuable information and pulled me in." Read on for the rest of David's review.

Ben Rothke writes "Information security is a hot career area and is among the strongest fields within IT for growth and opportunity. With excellent long-term career prospects, increasing cybersecurity vulnerabilities and an increase in security & privacy regulations and legislation, the demand for security professionals is significant. Even with a bright future, that does not necessarily mean that a career in information security is right for everyone. What differentiates an excellent security professional from a mediocre one is their passion for the job. With that, IT Security Interviews Exposed is a mixed bag of a book. For those that are looking for an information security spot and have the requisite passion for the job, much of the information should already be known. For someone who lacks that passion and simply wants a security job, their lack of breadth will show and the information in the book likely won't be helpful, unless they have a photographic memory to remember all of the various data points." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.

Michael J. Ross writes "For Web developers who appreciate the value of separating Web content from its presentation, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has proved a godsend, because it allows all of the styling of a Web site to be organized in CSS files separate from the site's semantic content, in HTML files (possibly dynamically generated). Yet to make this styling power possible, CSS must incorporate a long list of syntax elements, including hundreds of selectors, properties, and values. Thus it can be quite handy for the developer to have on hand a concise summary of CSS, such as the CSS Pocket Reference, authored by Eric A. Meyer." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.

Craig Maloney writes "Throughout the years, there have been many clones and re-implementations of the venerable vi editor. One variant of vi that emerged and stayed with us is VIM. Since its introduction, VIM has proven itself a worthy successor to the traditional vi editor. VIM has rightfully taken the place of standard vi implementations as the spiritual successor to vi, completely replacing the vi editor on many, if not all of the current Linux distributions. Many improvements have been made to VIM such as tabs, spell checking, folding, and many, many more. However many of these new enhancements may still remain hidden to anyone who isn't keeping up on the cutting edge of VIM development. Hacking VIM is a good resource for becoming more familiar with the new features of VIM and how to make them work best for you." Read below for the rest of Craig's review.

Aeonite writes "As a content writer I was not heavily involved in the level design process at my last game industry job, but Phil Co's Level design For Games: Creating Compelling Game Experiences accompanied me to work every day. Not only is it a good introduction to the world of level design, but it also provides an excellent overview of the entire game design process." Read below for the rest of Michael's thoughts on this book.

Michael J. Ross writes "When veteran PHP developers have specific and nontrivial functionality that they want to implement in their code, they can do so from scratch, but this can be time-consuming or essentially reinventing the wheel. They can adopt completed code posted in an online discussion forum, but such code tends to be buggy. They can use an open source library or other packaged code, but this approach can oftentimes prove to be overkill. Consequently, many developers prefer focused solutions found in PHP cookbooks, such as The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.

Anita Kuno writes "On a Sunday, a fellow user-group member suggested I learn SQL. The next day, an opportunity to review Head First SQL arrived in my email. Who was I to question? Prior to opening the couriered package, I had no knowledge of SQL, I knew databases were important, and I had seen the Head First website once or twice. Now, I can design and create databases, use mySQL databases, and understand questions and accompanying code posted to forums. The credit goes to Head First SQL's style, which introduces small bits of information, supported through multiple channels (such as photos with humorous dialogue, stick-men and stick-women, and input from critical personalities whose photos and input pop up throughout the book) regular tests and exercises so the new bit of data can find a home and settle into your memory. The regularly tested pieces of information are now in my brain so I don't have to look up the basic stuff." Read below for the rest of Anita's review.

If you've ever read Wil Wheaton's blog (clevernickname to us), you know he's not afraid to put everything on the table. One of the things I've always admired about his writing is his willingness to talk about his kids. On the internet. With ... people. Despite the obvious problems that could cause, Wil has been sharing anecdotes about his adventures in parenting since the early days of WWDN. His newest book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, talks about growing up geek and what it means to be a nerd and a father at the same time. Read on for my review.

Ben Rothke writes "One of the mistakes many organizations make when it comes to information security is thinking that the firewall will do it all. Management often replies incredulously to a hacking incident with the thought "but don't we have a firewall". Organizations need to realize a single appliance alone won't protect their enterprise, irrespective of what the makers of such appliances suggest and promise. A true strategy of security defense in depth is required to ensure a comprehensive level of security is implemented. Defense in depth uses multiple computer security technologies to keep organizations risks in check. One example of defense in depth is having an anti-virus and anti-spyware solution both at the user's desktop, and also at the gateway." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.

Craig Maloney writes "Over the long history of Linux, there have been many different distributions. One of the most famous distributions, love it or hate it, is the Ubuntu distribution. Ubuntu has come quickly from being the new kid on the block with the Warty Warthog release (4.10) to the most recent release Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). In that three year span, Ubuntu has grown from a handful of enthusiasts and developers to a thriving worldwide community. The Official Ubuntu Book is the official book from Canonical, which describes not only the Ubuntu distributions, but also the community from which Ubuntu is derived." Read below for the rest of Craig's review.

Martin Ecker writes "Weighing in at fifty pages short of a thousand, NVIDIA has recently released the third installment of its GPU Gems series, aptly titled "GPU Gems 3" published by Addison-Wesley Publishing. Just like the two previous books before it, GPU Gems 3 is a collection of articles by numerous authors from the game development industry, the offline rendering industry, academia, and of course NVIDIA. The 41 chapters of the book grouped into six parts discuss a wide range of topics, all dealing with recent advancements in using graphics processing units (GPUs, for short) to either render highly realistic images in real-time or do high-performance, parallel computation, an area that is called GPGPU (short for General Purpose computation on GPUs). In this latest installment of the series, the focus of a lot of the chapters is on using new hardware features of Direct3D 10-level hardware, such as NVIDIA's GeForce 8 series, to either get more realistic looking results or higher performance." Read on for the rest of Martin's review.

Michael J. Ross writes "Every Internet user's impressions of a Web site is greatly affected by how quickly that site's pages are presented to the user, relative to their expectations — regardless of whether they have a broadband or narrowband connection. Web developers often assume that most page-loading performance problems originate on the back-end, and thus the developers have little control over performance on the front-end, i.e., directly in the visitor's browser. But Steve Souders, head of site performance at Yahoo, argues otherwise in his book, High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Frontend Engineers." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.

Jon Allen writes "A glance through any photography magazine will confirm that Adobe Photoshop is the accepted standard image editing software, offering almost unparalleled power and control over your images. However, costing more than many DSLR cameras, for non-professionals it can be a very hard purchase to justify (and of course for Linux users this is a moot point, as Photoshop is not available for their platform). Luckily, the free software community has provided us with an alternative. The GIMP, or Gnu Image Manipulation Program, offers a huge amount of the power of Photoshop but is available at no cost. Additionally GIMP is cross-platform, available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix." Read below for the rest of Jon's review.

Michael J. Ross writes "Money plays a key role in modern life; in fact, for some people, nothing is more important than acquiring more of it. Yet most people do not know what money really is, how it is created, how its supply is expanded and contracted, and who benefits from those changes. In the United States, the central figure in this ongoing drama, is our central bank, the Federal Reserve, whose history, power, and effects are explored in G. Edward Griffin's fascinating book The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.

Martin Ecker writes "The Red Book, also known as the OpenGL Programming Guide published by Addison-Wesley Professional, returns in its sixth edition with additions covering OpenGL 2.1. The Red Book, so called because of its nice, red cover, is probably the most-well known, standard introduction to the OpenGL graphics API. Let me take you on a tour through the pages of this book to see what it has to offer." Read on for the rest of Martin's review.

sdedeo writes "Republic.com 2.0 is an updated and reworked version of Cass Sunstein's Republic.com, which was reviewed on slashdot back in April 2001. That earlier version was written before blogger was purchased by google, before wikipedia broke "10,000th most popular" on alexa, and — most importantly for Cass — before the terrorist attacks of September 11th unleashed a torrent of political blogging that has yet to peak." Read on for the rest of Simon's review

gnalre writes "Every day it seems there is a new publication of a book on perl/python/ruby. Some languages however do not seem to get that sort of attention. One of those under-represented languages is Erlang, however for the first time in 10 years a new Erlang book has been published. As someone who had a brief flirtation with Erlang long ago, I was interested to see how the language had evolved in the intervening decade. I was also curious to re-evaluate Erlang to see what solutions it offered to the present day issues of writing reliable distributed applications." Read on for the rest of Tony's review.