nead writes "If you are disciple in the church of Wall, or like me you believe that laziness is the father of invention, or if you simply have more than a couple *nix machine to administer, Kirk Bauer's new book Automating Unix and Linux Administration is definitely for you. From the creator of the popular open source projects AutoRpm and LogWatch comes a thorough - and believe it or not entertaining - look at how one can leverage the power of a few common tools to significantly reduce the time and effort system administrators spend doing their jobs." Read on below for the rest of nead's review.

Alex Moskalyuk writes with the review below of John Viega and Matt Messier's Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++, a book which he says is useful -- but only if you have the background to use it. Read on for the details, including Alex's alternative reading suggestions.

honestpuck writes "Webmin is a pretty neat tool for administering a server using a GUI, particularly remotely. Managing Linux Systems with Webmin, written by Webmin's author, Jamie Cameron, is an extensive look at using and extending it, a good guide not without flaws." Read on for honestpuck's take on this book's good / bad ratio.

pres (Preston Tollinger) writes "I picked up Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security In an Uncertain World basically because it was by Bruce Schneier. I am sure most Slashdot readers know Schneier's name and his work. The problem is, this book probably isn't for you (but might be perfect for someone you know)." To find out what he means by that, read on for the rest of Tollinger's review, below.

wcbrown writes "The heady days of venture capitalists funding any idea with a Web presence and IPOs without business plans are long gone, but entrepreneurship existed prior to the Internet and will continue long past when the net becomes a ubiquitous utility like the telephone. Business has changed fundamentally since the dot-com boom even if investing hasn't. To be successful in the business world today, you absolutely have to incorporate some sort of technology. If you don't, your competitors will and they will have a lower cost of doing business because of it." Read on for the rest of wcbrown's review.

ellenf contributes this review of User Interface Design for Programmers. "Aimed at programmers who don't know much about user interface design and think it is something to fear, Joel Spolsky provides a great primer, with some entertaining and informative examples of good and bad design implementations, including some of the thought process behind the decisions. Spolsky feels that programmers fear design because they consider it a creative process rather than a logical one; he shows that the basic principles of good user interface design are logical and not based on some mysterious, indefinable magic." Read on for the rest of ellenf's review.

carl67lp (Carl Anderson) writes "I was recently charged with redesigning my University division's Web site. I hadn't designed a Web site in quite some time, and I wanted to ensure that I did so with everything being 'proper'--the nature of our projects require as large an audience as possible. When I saw Designing With Web Standards available on O'Reilly's Safari bookshelf, I knew I had to snag it. And now, after finishing the book (the first IT book I've ever read beginning to end!), I'm here to preach the book's virtues as the author preaches those of Web standards." Read on for Anderson's review of the book.

honestpuck writes with the review below of O'Reilly's Practical mod_perl, which he describes as "a doorstop sized volume that provides more information on using mod_perl than you ever thought you needed." Read on for the rest of his review, and to see whether you actually do need to know what's in this book.

Robotech_Master writes "For a long time, A Fire Upon the Deep has been one of my favorite books. Combining interesting technological prognostication, fascinating concepts, amusing characters, and an enthralling story, this novel brings together science fiction and present-day science fact in a deeply compelling read. For a long time, this book had been available in electronic form from Palm Digital Media, and it was the first e-book I ever bought for my Palm PDA. Recently a new 'special edition' of the book was published electronically, containing the annotations that had previously only been available on the 1993 Hugo/Nebula CDROM, and I knew I had to make the purchase--and then, since I couldn't dig up any other mention of it on Slashdot, review it." Robotech Master warns that his (lengthy) review below of the updated version "contains some minor spoilers for plot, but not for ending."

Fred Reynolds writes "You'd think that predicting human behavior would be easy. A moment or two's reflection, and it's obvious that people act to further their own interests. And in fact, the science of economics is founded on this observation. So everyone should be a rational economizer, busy calculating their individual costs and benefits, and acting accordingly. Right?" Since things aren't quite so simple, Reynolds has reviewed Robert R. Prechter's Socionomics: the Science of History and Social Prediction; read on for the rest.

briandonovan writes "World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Director Tim Berners-Lee and his compatriots would like to transform the current Web into a 'Semantic Web' where 'software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users' using 'structured collections of information and sets of inference rules.' The Resource Description Framework (RDF), designed as a language for expressing information about resources on the Web, and allied technologies are the result to date of ongoing efforts at the W3C to furnish Semantic Web proponents with the requisite tools. While it's far too early to predict whether TimBL's grand vision will be realized, RDF/XML (the XML serialization of RDF) is already in widespread use, having been incorporated into a surprising array of applications." Read on below for briandonovan's link-stuffed review of O'Reilly's Practical RDF.

Christina Schulman writes " Quicksilver, Volume One of the Baroque Cycle, is the new doorstop from Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon . It's set in late-seventeenth-century Europe, and while it has a few links to Cryptonomicon, you don't need to read Cryptonomicon first. A bit of background reading about the English Civil War wouldn't hurt, though." Schulman's review (below) is enough to whet the appetite, without major spoilers -- perfect for those of us who've been waiting since the end of Cryptonomicon for another 900 pages.

Peter Wayner writes: "If you're looking for a quick way to test the difference between reading text online and reading it in a book, turn to Steal This Computer Book 3 by Wallace Wang, the third edition of a popular series that promises to tell you 'what they won't tell you about the Internet.' All of the information in the book can be gathered from Google for free, but the crisp writing, clean presentation and printed format make the book a good deal. It's possible to curl up in a chair out of WiFi range and cruise the best parts of the Internet without leaving a trail of cookies." Read on below for the rest of Peter's review -- it's free!

honestpuck writes "To say that understanding HTTP is crucial for web development might seem like saying water is wet, yet many people don't take the time to fully understand the protocol. This book could be a good help. HTTP Developer's Handbook from SAMS gives you a great deal of information about the protocol in a clearly understood fashion." Read on for the rest of honestpuck's review.

Read on below for two readers' review of books aimed at Red Hat 9 users: acemics writes with a quick review of Red Hat Linux 9 Professional Secrets, and reader skogs contributes a longer look at Sam's Publishing's Red Hat Linux 9: Unleashed.

Tom Alaerts writes "I discovered Robert Charles Wilson because of the curiosity-inducing Slashdot review of his previous novel, The Chronoliths. I had read a lot of SF in the past but over the last 10 years I drifted away from the genre. The Chronoliths sparked my interest again, and this was largely because Wilson, next to an interesting story, gives a lot of attention to the character development. I really liked the deliberate pacing of the book (I can understand that some might find it slow), following the characters through a carefully constructed story. It made me curious about his other works such as Darwinia or the short story collection The Perseids. And now Wilson's new novel Blind Lake is available." Read on for his review.

milaf writes "Surprisingly many people have absolutely wrong ideas about Web Services. I think that the hype and perceived simplicity of everything having to do with the Web are to blame. Well, that, and the wide-spread 'confidence through ignorance' among us." Read on for milaf's review of the O'Reilly-published Java Web Services in a Nutshell, which he says displaces hype with good information.

RobotWisdom (Jorn Barger) writes "Imagine if William Gibson wrote a James Bond adventure in which a sexual tigress seduces Bond into a Caribbean political crisis, requiring a nighttime scuba-dive into a sunken treasure-wreck, and then a voodoo ceremony that reads like a nightmare acid trip. Now replace James Bond with an "overeducated hick" atheist literature professor from Minnesota. And target the writing to intelligent adults, rather than adolescents. That should give you an idea of the latest novella from Robert Stone, Bay of Souls: A Novel." The book is compact, and so is the rest of Barger's review (below).

Simon P. Chappell writes "Now, I enjoy a good technical book more than the next geek, but it's been quite a while since one left me quite so excited with the possibilities that it presented. Code Generation in Action is beyond interesting, it is a masterful tome on its subject matter, written by one who is obviously an experienced practicioner in his craft." If "code generation" isn't a familiar term to you, this enthusiastic overview on devx.com is a concise introduction to what code generation is about, though it makes no pretense of ambivalence about its importance as a programming tool. Read on for the rest of Chappell's review.

Mar's closest visit to the earth for a while may be over -- but while that reddish speck is still far brighter than usual, you might want to brush up on your Martian knowledge. Read on below for honestpuck's review of A Traveler's Guide To Mars.