Craig Maloney writes "Many Slashdot readers know how to secure a network, and many know how to determine if a security breach has taken place. Fewer readers, though, would know how to handle a security breach if corporate assets were involved. How would you cooperate with law enforcement when a crime has been committed on a computer?" For more questions, and the rest of Maloney's review of Warren G. Kruse II and Jay G. Heiser's Computer Forensics, read on below.

prostoalex (Alex Moskalyuk) writes "After the Presidential election process and U.S. foreign policy directions, outsourcing is a topic guaranteed to stir up heated debate. Bill Blunden's Offshoring IT is not a 'how-to' guide, as one might expect from the title. It's a collection of stats, figures and opinions on outsourcing information technology to foreign providers." Read on for the rest of Moskalyuk's review; watch out too for my upcoming review of N. Sivakumar's Debugging Indian Computer Programmers: Dude, did I steal your job?.

norburym (Mary Norbury-Glaser) writes "As the title suggests, Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization is intended for the range of users between novice and professional. It may seem difficult for one book to suit such a wide readership without losing readers on either end of the spectrum, or perhaps without providing adequate coverage to any particular audience, Apress has done what many other publishers have failed to do by providing an excellent series of 'novice to professional' books. An example of their dedication to detail and perfection is the inclusion of top-notch technical reviewers (Mike Hillyer, in this case, often found haunting Experts Exchange as one of the top MySQL experts) who provide expertise to the series. Authors Jon Stephens and Chad Russell have extensive combined PHP and MySQL experience that shows in the content of this volume. Readers with some MySQL experience who desire a broader range of instruction will gain much from this book. Experienced users will find quite a lot of valuable information that will extend their existing knowledge base. Concepts in design are better learned from the beginning to avoid repeating poor programming mistakes, but it's never too late to learn good practices." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.

honestpuck (Tony Williams) writes "With Apple's iPods sitting under many Christmas trees come the morning of December 25th, the question arises as to what might sit well next to it. I'm suggesting one of these three books might be just the ticket." Read on for Williams' reviews of three iPod books.

Fahrenheit 450 (William D. Neumann) writes "Developing Applications With Objective Caml was originally published in French by O'Reilly, and later translated into English by a group of volunteers (note that the reviewer was a volunteer proofreader during the translation effort), and graciously made available online as HTML or PDF at the Caml website. For those not familiar with Objective Caml (or OCaml, as it is commonly called), it is a strongly, statically typed (but don't be thinking about Pascal-style typing), eagerly evaluated language with a functional core that also offers many imperative programming features. OCaml also has full support for object-oriented programming that fits in completely with OCaml's strong type system. On top of that, OCaml code can be interpreted for simple scripting, compiled to bytecode for portability, or compiled to native code for speed and resource utilization that rival even that of Intel's C++ compiler. Intrigued?" If so, read on for the rest of Neumann's review.

Aeonite (Michael Fiegel) writes "When I was in fourth grade, my teacher once made the class grade each other's papers. As she read off answers, I stared in horror at the paper I had been given from the girl next to me. Every answer was wrong. Every one. By the time I had ticked off the 30th incorrect answer, I was practically in tears. I felt responsible, somehow, for the problems on the page. It would not be her fault that she failed, but rather my own fault for calling attention to her flaws. I felt ashamed. I felt awful. That was twenty years ago. I've gotten over it. That said, I have purposely not read any other reviews of the new 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons coffee table book, so I have no idea if other 'students' will judge this book in the same way I am about to. Which is to say, with a critical eye and a sad, sad shake of my head." Read on for Fiegel's review.

sympleko (Matthew Leingang) writes with his review of Running Mac OS X Panther, by James Duncan Davidson. "The Macintosh has come a long way in twenty-plus years. Much has been said of Mac OS X being the perfect union of a rock-solid operating system with a beautiful and functional user interface. Since the iMac, Apple's market share has been steadily increasing, and since OS X, Unix users have been making the switch. My last computer was a dual-boot box that I kept finding excuses to keep from booting to Windows. My PowerBook is literally the best of both worlds. I can run the older unix-based apps I need to for work, and use Microsoft programs and play fancy games when I want. It's also essentially two different computers. This book is about using that second computer, the workhorse behind the scenes." Read on for the rest.

Adam Jenkins writes "I have had a fair bit of experience with malware, from removing DOS viruses to removing rootkits on Windows servers. Currently I am working in desktop support at a university -- exactly where many of the anti-malware battles occur." With that background, he provides a review of the reprinted Malware: Fighting Malicious Code, writing "As with many things computer-related, this book might age quickly, but it has lots of sound theory that will stay relevant for a long time, even if it doesn't discuss the latest worm by name. I haven't read the author's earlier book (Counter Hack: A Step-by-Step Guide to Computer Attacks and Effective Defenses) but he is well known as both the author of that and also for the SANS lectures he runs." Read on for the rest of Jenkins' review, or revisit Matt Linton's review.

James Edward Gray II writes "Beginning Perl (Second Edition) is a well named text that starts exactly where it claims. It assumes no prior knowledge of Perl or of programming in general. If that describes your needs, this book is a fine place to start." Read on for the rest of Gray's review.

Robin "Roblimo" Miller is well-known in the open-source world for advocating cheap, user-friendly Linux computing and demonstrating that it's not only possible but available, right now. (He's also a writer and editor at NewsForge, and the editor in chief of OSTG, of which Slashdot is a part, and therefore one of my bosses; take that for what it's worth.) Roblimo's new book Point and Click Linux really consists of three things: the book itself, an included copy on CD of the Debian-based SimplyMepis Linux distribution, and a DVD featuring Roblimo's multi-part narrated video guide for getting started with Linux, Mepis and KDE. "Getting started" is key; this book is for the interested beginner, not the power user. Read on for the rest of my review.

Craig Maloney writes "I'm skeptical whenever a publisher uses the words 'Definitive,' or 'Complete,' or (especially) 'Ultimate' in the title of a computer book. Sadly, the typical book so labeled is a jumble of incomplete ideas crammed together with very little depth. Worse, some books do little more than re-print the various command-line switches for the application. Michael Kofler's The Definitive Guide to MySQL (2nd ed.) is just the opposite. There're still lots of ideas crammed inside of the book, but they're carefully explained and expanded. The book weighs in at a hefty 802 pages, with very little fluff. " Read on for the rest of Maloney's review.

r3lody (Raymond Lodato) writes "Like most people, I've only scratched the surface (well, maybe I gouged it a bit) of the capabilities of the Microsoft Office products. There are more features buried in them than most users ever discover. I use Microsoft Excel frequently in my job to analyze all sorts of data. When they came out with Pivot Tables, I dabbled in them and found several uses for them. However, documentation being what it is, I never really got to understand and utilize Pivot Tables' full capabilities. Now, Apress has published A Complete Guide to Pivot Tables: A Visual Approach, by Paul Cornell." Read on for the rest of Lodato's review.

Daniel Shefer writes "Joel on Software is a collection of essays from the Joel Spolsky's Joel on Software web log. Spolsky is also the author of User Interface Design for Programmers (previously reviewed on Slashdot) and is the principal of Fog Creek Software. In this book, Spolsky distills his technical knowledge, wit, and years of experience into an engaging collection of essays on programmers, programming and the software world. Spolsky covers everything from the technical aspects of writing code to software project management, and even offers insights into software marketing." Read on for the rest of Shefer's review.

norburym writes "The publishers' blurb on the back cover describes Knoppix as 'a veritable Swiss Army knife in CD form.' Knoppix Hacks by Kyle Rankin is no less astounding in revealing the hidden versatility and power inherent in this unassuming tool." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.

James Edward Gray II writes "Apress sent me a copy of Holub on Patterns for review, and for that I'm extremely grateful, because this is a gem of a book I would not have liked to miss. Odds are, most object-oriented programmers will feel the same, so allow me to share the highlights." Read on for the rest of Gray's review.

sympleko (Matthew Leingang) writes "In Neal Stephenson's manifesto In the Beginning was the Command Line , he writes about his favorite command-line utility: wc. As simple as can be, wc counts characters, words, and lines in a file. There's no GUI analogue, perhaps because anybody tempted to make one would add too many "features" that cluttered its ease of use. Think: do you know how to count the words in a Word file? BBEdit is a little easier, if you know the button to click." Read on for Leingang's review of Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther, which seeks to reconcile the conception of user friendliness in OS X's Aqua with the sometimes-denigrated command line.

prostoalex writes "A lot of avid PC users got first introduced to the computers through games. Some later turned their hobbies into full-time jobs. The ExtremeTech series of Wiley books aims at the readers who are curious about technology and are willing to dedicate some time to personal to projects that educate and develop skills. Before this review starts reading as a press release, I will throw in a link to my review of another title, Linux Toys, the book that pioneered the series." Read on for Alex's review of Wi-Fi Toys.

Sarusa writes "Stop me if you've heard this one: Bright, innocent, bushytailed overachiever geek, inexorably crushed by the harsh realities of corporate America, turns into paranoid shaven-headed slacker (and Church of the Subgenius minister) who sees conspiracy theories under every rock. 'Heard it?' you sneer, 'I've lived it!' So why would you want to read a book about it? Cube Farm by Bill Blunden proves that if nothing else, you can always serve as a bad example." Read on for the rest of Sarusa's review.

dba599 (Mark McKinnon) submits this review of Harlan Carvey's Windows Forensics and Incident Recovery, writing "This book takes an unusual approach to computer forensics in that it deals only with live analysis of the system: the compromised computer is left powered on and everything is running. (Compare to a dead analysis, for which the computer is powered off and the hard drive's contents are then analyzed.)" Read on for the rest of McKinnon's review.

I spent several hours this week poring through Gordon Laing's beautiful book Digital Retro , and it's one I'm sure to return to at odd moments, the same way I like to flip through old copies of The Whole Earth Catalog. Digital Retro represents years of research into a 14-year stretch of personal computing history, distilling that effort into a work that is graphically appealing, but also an informative, informal historical look at the machines it celebrates (all 40 of them). Depending in part on what year you were born (and at what age computers entered the picture) you may recognize most of these machines, or only a few -- it's an equally fun read either way. Read on for the rest of my review.