Ben Rothke writes "Outsourcing information technology has been the rage over the last decade, to the degree that there are not enough bodies in Bangalore and Mumbai for companies such as Wipro, Infosys and Tata to hire. The problem is that many companies have gone down the road of outsourcing without performing the proper due diligence. Rather than saving money, many organizations have found that outsourcing ultimately is much more expensive than keeping security functions in-house, in addition to other negative consequences." Read on for the rest of Rothke's review of Outsourcing Information Security.

Richard Rodger writes with a review of Godfrey Nolan's Decompiling Java. "I've just put this book down after reading it right through non-stop for four days. I haven't done that with a technical book since Learning Perl. Most techie book these days are quickie grab-bags, and you end up paying for a lot of dead trees that you aren't interested in." Read on for the rest of his review.

Anton Chuvakin writes "I've read some pretty bad books on penetration testing; till now, nobody seemed to get this fun subject right! Good news - this time somebody did. Assessing Network Security comes to us direct from the bunkers of Redmond. Written by three Microsoft security researchers, the book provides a great overview as well as an in-depth coverage of assessing security via penetration testing ('pentesting'), scanning, IT audit and other means." Read on for the rest of Chuvakin's review of the book.

Alex Moskalyuk writes "When reading about the computer crimes, we are usually told the victim's point of view. We learn about the thieves stealing thousands of credit card numbers and identity theft victims, who lost their credit history with the wallet they lost at the mall. But how do criminals ever get caught? Who performs the forensic search and participates in sting operations?" Read on for Alex's review of High-Tech Crimes Revealed, which addresses these questions.

John Suda writes "There are more new books being published about PHP than you can shake a joystick at. PHP (along with program friends - MySQL and Apache) has become very popular among developers and web designers, and for good reason. As a programming language, it is particularly suited to web development projects, while being relatively easy to write, use and learn. More importantly, it's open-source and free, cross-platform, and widely supported. David Sklar's Learning PHP5 is one of the latest volumes dealing with PHP. It describes itself as 'a Pain-Free Introduction to Building Interactive Web Sites,' and provides a gentle introduction to the latest version of PHP, which is version 5 and only recently available." Read on for Suda's review.

cgjherr (Jack Herrington) writes "The Cult of Mac, a new book by Leander Kahney, is a love letter to the Macintosh community. The book seeks to simultaneously define and evangelize the Apple cultural phenomenon. With 25 million users (in the author's estimation) there is a lot of culture to go around. The tattoos. The modified machines. The pilgrimage to MacWorld. The sub-cult of iPod. It's all here." Read on for the rest of Herrington's review.

John Suda writes "There are more new books being published about PHP than you can shake a joystick at. PHP (along with program friends - MySQL and Apache) has become very popular among developers and web designers, and for good reason. As a programming language, it is particularly suited to web development projects, while being relatively easy to write, use and learn. More importantly, it's open-source and free, cross-platform, and widely supported. David Sklar's Learning PHP5 is one of the latest volumes dealing with PHP. It describes itself as 'a Pain-Free Introduction to Building Interactive Web Sites,' and provides a gentle introduction to the latest version of PHP, which is version 5 and only recently available." Read on for Suda's review.

donour (Donour Sizemore) writes "I recently bought a high-performance automobile that has a reputation for its tuning potential. Before making the purchase, I joined several online forums for enthusiasts in order to get a good reading on how happy people are with the particular model. I was amazed at the vibrant communities built around websites such as evolutionm.net and nasioc.com. A wealth of information is available, but the data is surrounded by noise. For every knowledgeable enthusiast, there are many more misinformed or incorrect speculators whose opinions usually spring from personal preference or a need to hear themselves talk. Enter David Vespremi's Car Hacks & Mods for Dummies." Read on for the rest of Sizemore's review.

Dozix007 (Kurt Kaylor) writes "Daniel Sweeney, a technical writer, business reporter, and industry analyst is coming full circle in his series of wireless related writings with his latest book WiMax Operator's Manual: Building 802.16 Wireless Networks. Sweeney brings the WiMax 802.16 standard into the context of a ISP solution for the masses. WiMax is a recent standard from the IEEE that is similar to conventional wireless technology, however WiMax supports higher data rates and longer distance transmissions than other standards from the IEEE. This book drifts away from the recent flood of wireless books by conveying all needed knowledge to establish, understand, operate and potentially profit from an 802.16 wireless network, rather than a specific look at one aspect of the technology. This book is not only for the business minded, but for a consumer looking to establish a quality long-distance wireless network of their own." Read on for the rest of Kaylor's review.

swsuehr (Steve Suehring) writes "Knowing that Jeremy Zawodny works with MySQL in a highly demanding environment at Yahoo! Finance, I have to admit that I was somewhat anxious to crack open a copy of the book High Performance MySQL published by O'Reilly and written by Jeremy and Derek J. Balling. With such high expectations, it would be easy to be disappointed with the content or level of the material in the book. Far from disappointing, High Performance MySQL was exactly what I had hoped it would be and more." Read on for the rest of Suehring's review.

James Edward Gray II writes " Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide (Second Edition), known as the Pickaxe II to its fans, is an extremely current view of the Ruby programming language. Revised primarily by Dave Thomas, a founding father of the English Ruby community, Programming Ruby is distilled expertise from a reliable source. In the past, quality English documentation of Ruby has been in short supply, but if any one volume could solve that problem, this is it." Read on for the rest of Gray's review.

Paul S. R. Chisholm writes "What makes a software development project succeed? It's not language or tools or process. It's not a simple as people; even great programmers sometimes find themselves associated with disasters. In some sense, a successful project is the same thing as a successful organization; but what makes those? We need an anti-Dilbert. In Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development, James O. Coplien and Neil B. Harrison lay out the results of their research on the subject; what they found, helps." Chisholm also offers this disclaimer: "Full disclosure: I was a member of one of the organizations studied, and I contributed to one of the patterns in the book. I know both the authors; one is a long-time friend and mentor. This review reflects my opinion of the book, not of the authors. I paid for my copy of the book." Read on for the rest.

Sarusa writes "This may be the easiest book review I've ever written. If you program in Python and you want to write Internet applications, go buy Foundations of Python Network Programming by John Goerzen. There. What, you wanted more? Well, okay, but then I'm back to playing Katamari Damacy." Read on for the rest of Sarusa's review.

Raymond Lodato writes "For a number of years now, I've been playing with Linux at my company. My laptop is dual-boot, and I've been trying to steer away from Windows as much as I possibly can. Most of the books I've read have been geared either to running Linux as a server, or as a personal workstation. The gap has been filled. Moving to the Linux Business Desktop, by Marcel Gagné, covers what you need to know to successful run Linux as a business workstation." Read on for the rest.

Ben Rockwood writes "UNIX, in all its many forms, was developed by developers for developers. This is evident in the connection between UNIX and C. In many ways, you can't truly understand one without the other. Certainly, there are plenty of UNIX users and admins who understand semaphores but have never written a threaded application, and C programmers who have never left the Windows world, but nevertheless at some point you'll encounter the symbiotic relationship the two share. Often, though, we find system administration books that discuss programming topics but not programming itself -- and conversely, C programming books that don't address the essence of UNIX. When we combine the two topics we get a systems programming book, an epic guide that clarifies relationships essential to understanding both entities in a truly holistic manner." Read on for Rockwood's review of Solaris Systems Programming, a book he describes as reaching this ideal.

Adrian Spinei writes "From a documentation point of view, Hibernate is one of the most notable exception in the world of LGPL'ed projects. Its website offers a plethora of information, from solid documentation (the reference has no less than 141 pages) and various FAQs to sample projects and third-party resources. The forum is quite active and you may get answers to tricky questions. Or a little bit of rough treatment in case you haven't RTFM - but that is understandable, given the number of questions that the authors have to answer every day. Under these circumstances, one might wonder what Gavin King (Hibernate founder) and Christian Bauer (documentation/website maintainer and Hibernate core developer) can add in order to be able to write a 400-pages book about Hibernate. I mean - sure - only by joining the reference documentation, different FAQs and guides, one can easily 'extract' a hefty 'manuscript' with more than 200 pages." Read on for Spinei's review of Hibernate in Action.

Ben Rothke writes "As Henry David Thoreau observed 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.' That being the case, novels are written, to briefly take such men, out of that quiet desperation, even for a short while. Novels therefore require a certain melodrama and fantasy element. For if the novels lacked such exaggerated drama, it would suffice to read the New York Times, and not Tom Clancy. It is with such a backdrop that The Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency was written. The book is billed as an interactive techno-thriller novel." Read on for the rest.

Himanshu Rath writes "Computer Networking First-Step by Wendell Odom fills a long standing void for a truly introductory book which can be read and understood by anyone in less than a month. There are other excellent publications in Computer Networking (e.g. classics by Kurose and Ross, Stevens, Tannenbaum, Comer, and Cisco Press CCNA and CCNP companions, etc.) but they all embody different degrees of complexities and typically need at least one college semester to go over. What about those who do not have the time or inclination to spend a semester in a computer science class? Odom's book might be the answer." Read on for the rest of Rath's review.

norburym writes "W. Jason Gilmore and Apress have put together an impressive volume, both in girth and content, in Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL, From Novice to Professional. At first glance, it appears that any technical manual that tries to approach such heady stuff such as PHP and MySQL for an audience ranging the span from beginner to the uber-geek is headed for failure. Happily, I can report that Gilmore and Apress have given the world one book that will replace many other PHP and MySQL volumes. This is one that the reader will consistently rely on and keep near to hand." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.

honestpuck writes "As someone who lives on the wrong side of the world from the best sources of information and shopping I seem to spend a large amount of time online, and a large part of that in a search engine. Web Search Garage promises to let me 'Find it faster with less junk, less hassle.'" Read on for honestpuck's review of Web Search Garage.