Alan Knowles writes "Ever started looking for a PHP script to solve that problem in your company - Managing the passwords, keeping track of equipment, or making information available on the web. Normally after a few hours of hunting, you track down something that looks close to what you want, you download it, get it going, then start digging around the code. At this point, you cringe in fear of two problems, the spaghetti mess that you are about to deploy, the ongoing maintenance nightmare and the horrors of modifying it to fit your needs. Well this book isn't going to solve these issues, but at least if a few more of those budding open source developers read it, the world would be a better place." Read on for the rest of this review; Yes, the book is still available.

alvinc writes "Mark Rais' new book Linux for the Rest of Us is an excellent choice for beginning Linux users. It also has enough solid, fundamental information to be a refresher for experienced Linux users. The book's philosophy is that Linux is a viable alternative OS that is also fun, and this viewpoint is reflected in the narrative's friendly tone." Read on for the rest of Alvin's review. Update: 03/26 20:51 GMT by T : Since bn.com isn't stocking this book, author Marc Rais wrote to suggest that you can order this book straight from the publisher.

emmastory writes "I finally (finally) picked up Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. I've been meaning to grab it since I first heard that David Pogue wrote a book on OS X; I've been a fan of his for a while. I remember reading his stuff in Macworld -- on System 7, even -- when someone gave me a subscription (many) years ago, and his New York Times columns have generally been pretty good as well." Update: 03/25 16:43 GMT by T : Ha! The original headline was missing OS X's "X" -- now in place. Read on ...

nellardo writes "The book C++ Templates: The Complete Guide, by Vandevoorde and Josuttis, Addison-Wesley 2003, is an authoritative treatment of exactly what it claims: the template mechanism of C++. If you are a C++ programmer, you should have this book on your shelf. If you aren't a C++ programmer, move along -- this book is highly specific to C++, and won't be much help in understanding the template mechanisms of other languages. Of course, if you aren't a C++ programmer, you probably wouldn't even give this book a second glance in the first place." Read on for the rest of Brook's review.

Wee writes "Linux Server Hacks is not a book which will teach you system administration. In fact, if you aren't already familiar with how to set up and run Linux, this book will likely confuse you. It is also not a book which will teach you how to break into Linux servers. The word 'hack' in this case is not a pejorative. What LSH will do is show you how to fully tweak that Linux box you already run. It will show you new (and possibly better) ways to do the things you already do. The book will probably not make you a better admin, but it will almost certainly save you some time or give you at least one 'Why didn't I ever think of that?' head-scratcher." Read on for the rest of Wee's review.

peterwayner writes "One mathematician I know told me that the most important lesson he learned was how to read a math book. It did no good, he said, to just start plowing through the theorems because that brought confusion. The key was to skim the book five or six times to get an idea of what the writer was trying to do. Then, and only then, was it possible to figure out the equations. This is what Barry Mazur tries to do in his book Imagining Numbers . There are some equations, graphs and diagrams, but first and foremost he offers plenty of poetry, philosophy and history to lay a foundation for understanding imaginary numbers." Peter's review continues below -- despite its complicated, abstract subject matter, he says that it's "simple enough to be accessible to most who will be interested in it."

honestpuck writes "It has been quite a while since I have come across a book I'd label 'essential.' The last for non-programming computer users was Robin Williams' The Mac Is Not A Typewriter which I bought for a number of new Macintosh users." Now, though, honestpuck has found another book which he says is required reading for modern computer users -- read on for his review of O'Reilly's Google Hacks.

Hello Kitty writes "As far back as 1981, the videogame industry was pulling in more than Hollywood and Vegas combined; that year it raked in $5 billion, and for the most part did so one quarter at a time. So why haven't the arcade games so formative to geek youth (okay, geek 30somethings, young in the glory days of arcade play) gotten their due from the rest of popular culture? Lucky Wander Boy, DB Weiss' debut novel, is a step toward correcting that oversight. It's also a meditation on the bardo (the Buddhist notion of that which lies between the moment of death and the afterlife), on the excesses of the late dot-com era, and on where Pac-Man went in that split-second between disappearing on one side of the screen and reappearing on the other. And oh, yeah, it has a lead character screwed up just like your hysterical older relatives thought you would be if you didn't quit playing those nasty computer games. Bust out the rasterized graphics and Atari cartridges -- it's a party." Hello Kitty's review continues below.

kaisyain writes "When I was a kid we moved into an old Victorian house. From the street the house looked impressive and fascinating. When you got up close, however, you noticed the paint was peeling, the widow sashes were rotted away, doors couldn't open or close because they didn't hang true, and at some point someone had cheaply redone the kitchen in a style that was very much not Victorian. Pete McBreen's Software Craftsmanship reminds me of that house." Read on to see if you agree with kaisyain's withering review.

Gianluca writes "Web sites get defaced every day -- that's routine practice for aspiring crackers who want to gain popularity by proving their bravery. Too often their attacks are aimed at unprepared, defenceless servers which were improperly secured by clumsy administrators. Just reading a book won't save you from the next cracker attack. However, having a solid knowledge of the basics of web security and a list of effective checkpoints for configuring your server, will definitely help you to prevent at least the most trivial mistakes." Gianluca reviews here Wrox Press' Professional Apache Security to see how well it can provide that kind of knowledge -- read on below.

honestpuck writes "Wrox Press seem to have become masters at putting together volumes from a large number of authors. This 600-page volume is another example. This way of working does have some drawbacks, there is a little repetition of some basic stuff throughout the book, but not enough to truly detract from it." Read on for the complete version of honestpuck's review.

Frank Krasicki writes "The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay has already won numerous prizes for literature including the Nobel prize for fiction in 2001. As imposing as that may sound, this is an entirely accessible and enjoyable read." It's also set in the world of comics; read on for the rest of Krasicki's review to find out why he considers it an "entirely pleasant and entertaining book." Update: 03/07 16:39 GMT by T : That's Pulitzer prize, not Nobel.

James Yonan writes "For years, the space elevator concept has been a staple of science fiction fare, popularized by Arthur C. Clark in The Fountains of Paradise, a convenient and plausibly feasible technology for building a vertical railroad of sorts, tens of thousands of kilometers tall, linking earth with geosynchronous orbit. Unsatisfied with the unquestioning consignment of the space elevator concept to science fiction status, authors Bradley C. Edwards and Eric A. Westling set out to understand why it could or couldn't be done. The result is a compelling new book, backed up by voluminous research, which concludes that space elevators are near-term-feasible. Edwards and Westling have not only convinced roomfuls of skeptics of the basic concept, but have also won serious funding from NASA for continuing their work. This book, The Space Elevator, is one of the fruits of their ongoing research." This is a long review (continued below), but the subject demands it.

Eater writes "Over the last decade, we've seen an explosion in the area of books dealing with the subject of Internet security. Few have defined the genre as well as Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker by Bill Cheswick and Steve Bellovin. Security gurus rejoice... the 2nd edition is finally here!" Eater compares this new version to the original in his review below.

Verity Stob writes "There is a turning point in the emergence of a programming methodology. It doesn't matter how big and popular the website is, nor how many papers have been published in the ACM journals or development magazines, nor even whether the first conferences have been a sell-out. A methodology hasn't made really made it until somebody has published a Proper Book. With Aspect-Oriented Programming with AspectJ author Ivan Kiselev is bidding to drag AOP into the mainstream. He is motivated, he says in his introduction, by the recollection of the 25 odd years it took for the object-oriented concept to spread from its Simula origins in frosty Norway to being the everyday tool of Joe Coder. He aims to prevent this delay happening to AOP." Read on for Verity Stob's review of Kiselev's book.

Reader Bill Camarda reviewed Wiley & Sons' Hack Attacks Revealed in June, 2001. Now Tom Brays has examined the book's second edition, and concludes that it's well worth the read. Read on below for his review of the second edition (and the the linked review of the first edition) to get an idea of how the new version stacks up.

Robby Russell writes "Paper books have a tendency to accumulate dust, take up large amounts of shelf space and be a painful reminder that you need to get rid of stuff when moving time comes and you find yourself packing up the same Pascal book for an eighth time. Granted, the book provides a level of self-accomplishment and it's always great to have your best books out in direct sight of anyone who may come over to your home or office. You know the type; the ones who are observant and notice the books that you want the world to know that you've read, as if you were to say, 'Been there, done that.' You can't tell me that you don't put some of them up intentionally. ;-)" Russell is taken with O'Reilly's floating-rental system called Safari; read on for his review of the system.

shiroi_kami writes "What does Information Security mean to you? To many, it means firewalls and encryption. To some, it means intrusion detection systems. Chances are the words "file servers" weren't high on your list, but they probably should be. After all, information security is about information, and when it's not flying across the network it's got to be stored somewhere, right? In fact, the security of the storage mechanism is often overlooked, which makes it an attractive target for attackers. In their new book, Storage Security, the authors take a comprehensive look at this often-ignored subject. Update: 03/26 05:44 GMT by T : Please note, this review was written by David Bianco under the handle shiroi_kami as an Amazon.com review, and also appears at InfosecBooks.com. Apologies to David for the misplaced and delayed attribution.

loucura! writes "Kuro5hin's localroger has published (online currently, dead-tree soon hopefully) an interesting novel on the Singularity titled The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect . While some of its content is not for the squeamish, nor for children (in that pseudo-moral sense that children aren't mature enough to handle reading about subjects like death, consensual torture and murder, sex, cancer, and incest), the book evokes a plausible reality before and after the "Singularity." The introduction page has a warning: "This online novel contains strong language and explicit violence. If you are under 21 years old, or easily offended, please leave." If you're willing to look past that, read the rest of loucura!'s review, below.

Max Tardiveau writes "I just finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. It is an enjoyable book, written engagingly by an interesting character -- the kind of book that makes you think twice about certain things (for instance, the fact that you're not dead: is that really because you're so darn good, or does dumb luck play a part?) Although written all the way back in 2001, this book is more relevant than ever, since one of its major topics is the impact of unpredictable events on markets, insurance, and our perception of life in general. In fact, Taleb makes a living from unforeseen events; these days, that seems like a rather cunning niche." Read on for the rest of his review of this book.