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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. High Performance Web Sites author Steve Souders pages 168 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 9/10 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596529309 summary 14 rules for faster Web pages The typical Web developer — particularly one well-versed in database programming — might believe that the bulk of a Web page's response time is consumed in delivering the HTML document from the Web server, and in performing other back-end tasks, such as querying a database for the values presented in the page. But the author quantitatively demonstrates that — at least for what are arguably the top 10 sites — less than 20 percent of the total response time is consumed by downloading the HTML document. Consequently, more than 80 percent of the response time is spent on front-end processing — specifically, downloading all of the components other than the HTML document itself. In turn, cutting that front-end load in half would improve the total response time by more than 40 percent. At first glance, this may seem insignificant, given how few seconds or even deciseconds it takes for the typical Web page to appear using broadband. But any delays, even a fraction of a second, accumulate in reducing the satisfaction of the user. Likewise, improved site performance not only benefits the site visitor, in terms of faster page loading, but also the site owner, with reduced bandwidth costs and happier site visitors.

Creators and maintainers of Web sites of all sizes should thus take a strong interest in the advice provided by "Chief Performance Yahoo!," in the 14 rules for improving Web site performance that he has learned in the trenches. High Performance Web Sites was published on 11 September 2007, by O'Reilly Media, under the ISBNs 0596529309 and 978-0596529307. As with all of their other titles, the publisher provides a page for the book, where visitors can purchase or register a copy of the book, or read online versions of its table of contents, index, and a sample chapter, "Rule 4: Gzip Components" (Chapter 4), as a PDF file. In addition, visitors can read or contribute reviews of the book, as well as errata — of which there are none, as of this writing. O'Reilly's site also hosts a video titled "High Performance Web Sites: 14 Rules for Faster Pages," in which the author talks about his site performance best practices.

The bulk of the book's information is contained in 14 chapters, with each one corresponding to one of the performance rules. Preceding this material are two chapters on the importance of front-end performance, and an overview of HTTP. Together these form a well-chosen springboard for launching into the performance rules. In an additional and last chapter, "Deconstructing 10 Top Sites," the author analyzes the performance of 10 major Web sites, including his own, Yahoo, to provide real-world examples of how the implementation of his performance rules could make a dramatic difference in the response times of those sites. These test results and his analysis are preceded by a discussion of page weight, response times, YSlow grading, and details on how he performed the testing. Naturally, if and when a reader peruses those sites, checking their performance at the time, the owners of those sites may have fixed most if not all of the performance problems pointed out by Steve Souders. If they have not, then they have no excuse, if only because of the publication of this book.

Each chapter begins with a brief introduction to whatever particular performance problem is addressed by that chapter's rule. Subsequent sections provide more technical detail, including the extent of the problem found on the previously mentioned 10 top Web sites. The author then explains how the rule in question solves the problem, with test results to back up the claims. For some of the rules, alternative solutions are presented, as well as the pros and cons of implementing his suggestions. For instance, in his coverage of JavaScript minification, he examines the potential downsides to this practice, including increased code maintenance costs. Every chapter ends with a restatement of the rule.

The book is a quick read compared to most technical books, and not just due to its relatively small size (168 pages), but also the writing style. Admittedly, this may be partly the result of O'Reilly's in-house and perhaps outsource editors — oftentimes the unsung heroes of publishing enterprises. This book is also valuable in that it offers the candid perspective of a Web performance expert, who never loses sight of the importance of the end-user experience. (My favorite phrase in the book, on page 38, is: "...the HTML page is the progress indicator.")

The ease of implementing the rules varies greatly. Most developers would have no difficulty putting into practice the admonition to make CSS and JavaScript files external, but would likely find it far more challenging, for instance, to use a content delivery network, if their budget puts it out of reach. In fact, differences in difficulty levels will be most apparent to the reader when he or she finishes Chapter 1 (on making fewer HTTP requests, which is straightforward) and begins reading Chapter 2 (content delivery networks).

In the book's final chapter, Steve Souders critiques the top 10 sites used as examples throughout the book, evaluating them for performance and specifically how they could improve that through the implementation of his 14 rules. In critiquing the Web site of his employer, he apparently pulls no punches — though few are needed, because the site ranks high in performance versus the others, as does Google. Such objectivity is appreciated.

For Web developers who would like to test the performance of the Web sites for which they are responsible, the author mentions in his final chapter the five primary tools that he used for evaluating the top 10 Web sites for the book, and, presumably, used for the work that he and his team do at Yahoo. These include YSlow, a tool that he created himself. Also, in Chapter 5, he briefly mentions another of his tools, sleep.cgi, a freely available Perl script that tests how delayed components affect Web pages.

As with any book, this one is not perfect — nor is any work. In Chapter 1, the author could make more clear the distinction between function and file modularization, as otherwise his discussion could confuse inexperienced programmers. In Chapter 10, the author explores the gains to be made from minifying JavaScript code, but fails to do the same for HTML files, or even explain the absence of this coverage — though he does briefly discuss minifying CSS. Lastly, the redundant restatement of the rules at the end of every chapter, can be eliminated — if only in keeping with the spirit of improving performance and efficiency by reducing reader workload.

Yet these weaknesses are inconsequential and easily fixable. The author's core ideas are clearly explained; the performance improvements are demonstrated; the book's production is excellent. High Performance Web Sites is highly recommended to all Web developers seriously interested in improving their site visitors' experiences.

Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.

You can purchase High Performance Web Sites from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

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. The Creature from Jekyll Island author G. Edward Griffin pages 624 publisher American Media rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0912986212 summary A compelling history and indictment of the Federal Reserve system For the citizens of the United States and several Latin American countries, the "coin of the realm" is the US dollar, which is, in simple terms, created by the Federal Reserve, a.k.a., the Fed. But who created the Federal Reserve, and why? The subjects of banking in general, and the Federal Reserve in particular, would be considered by most Americans to be dry, boring, and of little importance to their day-to-day life. But those same people are endlessly fascinated by how to make more money (with minimal effort, such as the lottery), how to spend as little of it as possible (coupons never go out of style), and how to maximize one's investment returns. Why this disconnect? Why do Americans care so little about the origins of that which they spend a third of their time pursuing, and seemingly another third spending?

Some of these "salary slaves" may understand that their money serves as a store of wealth and a medium of commercial exchange, which makes possible their daily financial transactions without the need for bartering. But, for the most part, they do not understand the critical importance of what is backing that money, if anything; how that money comes into existence, and what debt offsets it; what entities control the supply and distribution of that money; and how those changes can be used to legally steal purchasing power from victims who may not be entirely unsuspecting, but do not truly comprehend how they are getting ripped off.

The typical American, if he or she has given any thought to the matter, would consider the following statements to be true: The Federal Reserve is federal, i.e., a part of the US government. The Federal Reserve is a reserve, i.e., it has monetary savings of real value. The Federal Reserve serves the public, and is not a cartel of private banks serving itself. The US dollar has real value, i.e., it represents tangible wealth, such as gold securely stored at Fort Knox. Inflation is an increase in prices. Inflation is caused by greedy companies, not the US government or the Federal Reserve.

As G. Edward Griffin makes clear in his book, none of these beliefs are true — regardless of how well entrenched they are in our conventional "wisdom." He also explains why the US government and the Federal Reserve have their own reasons for being in no hurry to eliminate this ignorance. Yet these topics are just a small portion of what is covered in his far-ranging discussion of the theory and history of money and banking, particularly within the United States.

Spanning 624 pages, the material is organized into 26 chapters, which are grouped into six sections: "What Creature Is This?" (the Federal Reserve's shameful birth, and the shenanigans of the Fed, S&Ls, the IMF, and the World Bank), "A Crash Course on Money" (money, gold, debasement, fiat money, fractional-reserve banking, and money creation), "The New Alchemy" (the Rothschilds, J.P. Morgan, and banker financing of wars and revolutions), "A Tale of Three Banks" (America's failed experiments with central banking, and the American Civil War), "The Harvest" (the unconstitutional creation of the Federal Reserve, and its dreadful effects, including the Crash of 1929), "Time Travel into the Future" (current crises caused by central banking, how they can be reversed, future scenarios, and what the individual can do regardless). Every one of the six sections begins with a brief summary, as does every chapter, with every chapter wrapped up with a more extensive summary.

The section summaries also appear in the table of contents, which precedes a preface and the author's acknowledgments. These are followed by a delightful introduction — a piece from the British humor magazine Punch, comprising a rather telling exchange between an unusually honest banker and a soon-to-be-disillusioned bank customer. The book contains three appendices: a summary of the structure and function of the Federal Reserve system; natural laws of human behavior in economics; and whether the M-1 measure of money is subtractive or accumulative. The author also provides an index, as well as an impressive bibliography, reflecting his extensive research on the topics. In addition, the author invites readers to join Freedom Force, an organization dedicated to increasing liberty in the United States, curbing federal totalitarianism, and abolishing the Federal Reserve — all through peaceful participation in government, and the shaping of public policy starting at the grassroots level.

The Creature from Jekyll Island is published by American Media, under the ISBNs 0912986212 and 978-0912986210. It first came out in July 1994, and is now in its fourth edition, and its 19th printing. It also has Japanese and German editions, published in February 2005 and August 2006, respectively. On the book's Web page, visitors will find testimonials and comments from readers, updates to the book, a review of the book by Jane H. Ingraham of The New American, and G. Edward Griffin's response to a critique of his book by Edward Flaherty, who holds a Ph.D. in Economics. On that Web page, interested readers can order audio cassettes or CDs of the author's lecture, based upon this book, and produced in 1998.

My only criticisms of the book concern not the material itself, but its production — more specifically, the printing and layout, presumably chosen and thus fixable in the future by the publisher. The generous font size used throughout the volume, makes it easy to read; but the bold text, such as the subheads found in every chapter, is a bit rough-edged — on some pages worse than others. The subheads, already bolded, do not need to be in all uppercase; the publisher should choose one or the other. In addition, the inside margin length is a bit too small, forcing the reader to crack open the book more than should be needed, in order to comfortably read the text closest to the binding. In future editions, some of the space in the outer margin could be used to solve the problem, without any change to the words on each page, and thus the length of the book.

But aside from these minor flaws, this book is to be highly recommended. The Creature from Jekyll Island is a remarkably thorough, detailed, and challenging critique of central banking and America's latest incarnation of it, the Federal Reserve. G. Edward Griffin's precision of language, and his interweaving of the major players and their motives, makes for a most compelling historical study.

Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.

You can purchase The Creature from Jekyll Island from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Server-side computer languages, such as Java, possess numerous advantages over their client-side counterparts — including more robust integrated development environments (IDEs). In contrast, Web-focused languages, such as JavaScript, benefit from the global accessibility of the Internet. Bridging this gap, and leveraging the strengths of both sides, has long been an objective of the software development community — though not all attempts have been successful, e.g., Java applets. The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is the latest attempt, and shows considerable promise, as illustrated in a new book intended to help programmers learn this new technology: GWT in Action." Read on for the rest of Michael's review GWT in Action author Robert Hanson and Adam Tacy pages 600 publisher Manning Publications rating 6 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1933988231 summary A practical introduction to programming with the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). Written by Robert Hanson and Adam Tacy, this book was published by Manning Publications on 5 June 2007, under the ISBNs 1933988231 and 978-1933988238. For any prospective reader who would like to learn more about the book, they can first try the book's Web page, where they will find online versions of the "about this book" section, table of contents, preface, and index. The publisher offers two freely downloadable chapters, "Creating the Default Application" and "Communicating with GWT-RPC," in PDF format. In addition, there is a link to purchase the book's electronic version, and a link to the author's forum, where readers can post questions about the book or GWT, and likely receive a response — perhaps even by one of the authors.

The book's 17 chapters are organized into four parts, and cover a generous number of topics: introduction to GWT; creating the default GWT application; building your own application based upon the default one; creating widgets and panels, including composite panels; processing user events; creating JSNI components; modularizing your code; communicating using GWT-RPC; client-side RPC; classic Ajax and HTML forms; using JSON for interoperability; automatically generating code; GWT's native properties; testing and deploying GWT applications; more on the inner workings of GWT itself. The book has no appendices, but a substantial index, which is essential for such a technically detailed subject area.

GWT in Action is clearly intended to be a practical and fairly comprehensive coverage of Google's new toolkit. Almost all of the GWT concepts are explained within the context of developing a substantial sample application, the Dashboard, created by the authors. The reader is encouraged to follow along as the authors build the application, thereby learning from doing — almost always an effective approach. At 600 pages, with almost none of the formatting padding found in far too many technical books nowadays, the authors have not skimped on providing the reader with a lot of information. Furthermore, their treatment of application deployment is far better than any other I have encountered.

Unfortunately, the book has many weaknesses. On an overall basis, the order of presentation is at times disjointed — seemingly dictated more by the Dashboard and less by the most logical order for someone new to GWT. Compounding the problem, the authors frequently refer to advanced topics, covered in greater detail later, and also repeat earlier information, occasionally several times. Despite promises to provide a gentle exposition, it can be difficult at times for the reader to determine if any critical steps were skipped, as a consequence of key instructions for building the sample application being spread out, and interspersed with too many references to general comments covered earlier. In turn, readers will likely find it frustrating to try to get the sample application working at each step of the development process — and not just at the end, with the complete code.

One source of these difficulties, is that in the first few chapters, the authors try to introduce too many topics all at once, and as a result do not thoroughly discuss each one in its own section. Instead, they break up the information over multiple sections, scattered throughout the book. An example of this is internationalization. Section 2.2.4 is titled "Implementing Internationalization," and yet provides almost no details, and is essentially unusable by itself. At the very least, it should mention that later sections 3.2.1 and 15.3 provide a lot more information. Furthermore, internationalization was introduced far too early in the book, and greatly complicates the process. Instead, the authors should have created a simple application using only English for the user interface, and introduce internationalization later, after fully explaining the basics of turning Java code into JavaScript functionality.

Part I of the book is the weakest of all of them, which may, sadly, turn off readers who would otherwise get to the better material later. The authors are clearly enthusiastic about the topics at hand, and the number of moving parts associated with Java/JavaScript/GWT development is certainly not trivial. Nonetheless, those initial chapters would greatly benefit from a rewrite; this would make the material more comprehensible and easier to follow, step-by-step.

We can mention some specific flaws: A book like this that is introducing a new technology, must take care to not leave the unwarned reader wondering if they have been left behind in the steps. People reading some of the earlier material may conclude that those steps have already been assumed by the authors, and will not be covered. The authors do not mention how to obtain and install GWT until page 30; that should be right up front. The authors do not appear to mention which version of GWT they used for the book. (I chose 1.3, not 1.4RC, available as of this writing). Any reader trying to follow along and implement their example application (the Dashboard) will probably find several hurdles. First of all, make sure that you have version 1.4 of GWT installed, and not 1.3.3, which does not include some of the panels and widgets used in their sample code.

In Chapter 1, they modify a "Hello world" application to create another application that shows a tic-tac-toe board that has clickable squares, but does not play the game. Chapter 2 describes this as "a fully functioning Tic-Tac-Toe application," which is like claiming a program works because it compiles. Also in Chapter 2, their discussion of development alternatives is slowed down by repetition of the same information. The sample code in the book has minor inconsistencies. For example, naming a password String "oldPass" in one method, then "old" in another, related method. There are other instances, but these give one an idea of some of the inconsistencies.

The coverage of topics is generally quite thorough, though at times verbose and redundant — particularly in Chapter 2, though it is certainly not limited to that chapter. The second and third paragraphs in Chapter 3, for instance, continue the repetitious style which is found in many places throughout the book, and likely has made it longer than necessary. In Chapter 4, the first two pages explain what widgets are, several times, and conclude with a picture of a button — as if any reader who has made it that far into the book doesn't know what a button is. The book could certainly use some trimming.

The downloadable source code is not complete. For starters, it is missing the code from Chapters 1 and 2, though admittedly none of that is too long. The code provided for Chapter 4 is just a portion of what is displayed in the book. Moreover, the directory paths in the sample code archive files, are not consistently named, and some may even be incorrect. For example, the code for Chapter 5 has a folder named "Dashboard — Chapter 4." That sort of thing does not instill confidence in the typical reader. The authors should revisit the sample code — making it complete and consistently named.

The publisher's page for the book does not appear to have a link for errata; perhaps none have been reported yet. Here are some: On page 75, in Table 3.1, in the left-hand column, "gwt-onLoadErrorFn" should instead read ""gwt:onLoadErrorFn." On page 77, in the second paragraph, the file name extension should be all lowercase, not all uppercase. On page 78, in Listing 3.6, the String parameter in the first label.setText() call should be delimited with straight quotes, not curly quotes. (Microsoft Word strikes again?!) On page 81, in the third paragraph, "comply to" should read "comply with." On pages 87 and 88, the -whitelist and -blacklist option values each contain an extraneous space before the "^." There are undoubtedly more such errata throughout the book, and can be corrected in the next edition; but these are enough to at least get an errata file started. Fortunately, none of them would lead an alert reader astray.

Even though the book could use significant reorganization and streamlining in the next edition, GWT in Action is packed with practical information on a wide range of GWT topics.

Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.

You can purchase GWT in Action from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "One of the most powerful and popular content management systems (CMSs) is Joomla, a superior derivative of Mambo. Out of the box, Joomla makes it relatively easy to build Web sites that allow collaborative editing of content, attractive styling via prebuilt templates, and many more features. A Joomla-based site can be further improved by adding custom modules, components, and other extensions to the CMS, without any modification to the core Joomla code. A resource that explains how to do this, is Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development: Creating Modules, Components, and Plugins with PHP, by Joseph L. LeBlanc." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development author Joseph L. LeBlanc pages 176 publisher Packt Publishing rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1847191304 summary A practical tutorial for creating Joomla! 1.5 extensions

The book is put out by Packt Publishing, under the ISBNs 1847191304 and 978-1-847191-30-4. The publisher maintains a page on their site dedicated to the book, where visitors can read summaries of the chapters and the overall book, order the e-book version (in PDF format) at a discount, download the book's sample source code, read and submit errata and feedback, and download a sample chapter, namely, "Chapter 1: Joomla! Extension Development: An Overview" (also in PDF format). Note that, as of this writing, the errata and feedback do not have their own links, but are located on the page accessible via the link "Code download," which should be clarified.

The book's title page bills it as "A practical tutorial for creating your first Joomla! 1.5 extensions with PHP," and that is exactly what the book is. Rather than organizing the information in a cookbook style — which is quite popular in programming books nowadays — this particular one uses a narrative approach, in which the author illustrates the concepts by stepping the reader through an example project. He begins with a clean install of Joomla, without any of the sample data, and shows how to "build extensions to create, find, promote, and cross-link restaurant reviews."

The nine chapters of the book are organized in a logical manner, and in the order that the typical developer would go about extending a Joomla-based site: overview; Joomla's component structure and registration; backend and front-end development; module development; using the model-view-controller design pattern (MVC); creating plug-ins; adding configurability for the extensions that you have created; packaging the extension elements for use by other Joomla developers.

In explaining the key concepts and procedures for building custom extensions to a Joomla site, the author takes a methodical approach, with a healthy balance between exposition, sample code, and illustrative figures. The chapters read quickly, and the code changes from one section to the next are helpfully bolded. The chapter summaries, as with most programming books, add no value, and could be beneficially dropped, thereby saving space.

The author states in the first chapter that there are three types of extensions within Joomla: components, modules, and plug-ins. This could be confusing to anyone who has read the articles that help introduce Joomla to the new developer, and are contained in the sample data found in Joomla version 1.5. Those articles include one titled "Extensions," which lists two additional extension types — templates and languages — not considered such by LeBlanc. However, that article does not make clear as to why templates and languages should even be considered extensions, which seems counterintuitive at first glance.

The presentation of all of the material in LeBlanc's book is not perfect, but it is certainly more than adequate. It is unfortunate that the book does not have a lay-flat binding, which tends to be more of a problem with slender volumes such as this one (176 pages), since much thicker books have more weight to keep both sides down on the table at the same time when the book is open. All of the screenshots have a bit too much pixelation, which makes the smallest text within the screenshots more difficult to read. However, none of that text is unreadable. The book's text outside of the screenshots is quite easy to read, with a generously-sized font and a logical layout of each page's material. Almost every page has two horizontal lines, one at the top, and one at the bottom; they serve no purpose, and could be eliminated to save ink and space, as could the brackets around every page number. The same is true for the much larger and thicker brackets used to delineate warnings, notes, tips, and tricks. There were a few other very minor flaws in the book. For instance, in the information about the reviewer, "MySQL" is misspelled. In the Table of Contents, the "Available Toolbar Buttons" line appears to be one font size too small, and thus inconsistent with the other subsection heads. All of these weaknesses are of little consequence and could be fixed in the next edition.

Even if a reader initially had no interest in developing their own extensions to Joomla, this book could easily spark their interest, given that the book shows just how powerful those extensions can be, as well as how doable they are, by any competent programmer familiar with PHP and MySQL. In fact, even if the reader were to later decide that they had no interest in creating any extensions, they could still benefit from the book's discussion of how components are structured within Joomla — a more clear explanation than anything I have seen in the official Joomla documentation. Joomla may be an excellent CMS, but the documentation quality does not come close to the value of Joomla itself. That is why there is such a great need for books such as this one.

Although Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development: Creating Modules, Components, and Plugins with PHP has some weaknesses — as do most if not all technical books nowadays — for any developer interested in getting the most out of Joomla by building custom extensions, LeBlanc's contribution should prove especially informative and useful.

Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.

You can purchase Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross and Dan Sisson write "In our increasingly mechanized world, we repeatedly hear promises that every new digital product, computerized service, or other form of technology, will make our lives easier — bestowing greater leisure, health, and happiness. Yet are any of those promises being fulfilled? Are we not instead becoming slaves to the very "conveniences" that we struggle to master? These weighty questions are addressed by Steve Talbott in his book Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines." Read below for the rest of Michael and Dan's review. Devices of the Soul author Steve Talbott pages 281 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 7 reviewer Michael J. Ross and Dan Sisson ISBN 0596526806 summary A passionate warning against technology overtaking our lives Published by O'Reilly Media in April 2007, under ISBNs 0596526806 and 978-0596526801, Devices of the Soul argues that we are now blindly accepting technology with little or no countervailing efforts or even awareness, and we are paying a terrible toll, both individually and as a society.

From the day a child of the 21st century begins his education, he is confronted with mind-numbing statistics, numbers, and facts via the computer — which he must accept. Perhaps even more important, he must master its "techniques" as the sine qua non tool to be successful in life. This is not a voyage of self-discovery; it is a demand by "the system" that the individual accept a way of viewing the world that invades, conquers, and ultimately controls his life. The child will learn most of what he knows with it, play with it, talk with it, and allow his thinking to be ruled by it — all because it is the magical machine that gives him access to the world's knowledge, e.g., the Internet.

By the time this child makes the transition from high school to college, he will be required to accept a curriculum that too often lacks meaning and content, that fails to allow him to satisfy his own curiosity about the challenges facing humanity, and is, moreover, expensive and will likely lead to indebtedness. There are few alternatives to this gauntlet, especially if one wishes to belong to the 'credentialed society', which determines modern man's measure of success.

Education is only the first stage in the numbing of our consciousness. What follows is built upon this edifice. Our acceptance of machines — ubiquitous in our everyday lives — provides our food, transportation, entertainment, information, and prestige — in sum, everything we need to function in modern society.

Talbott shows how the machines we use create a grand illusion, namely, that by having every technological gadget, we will save time and money, and be able to spend more time with our family and loved ones. However, that leisure time never materializes. The technology costs more, not less. Consequently, we find ourselves in a perpetual struggle to preserve a bare minimum of human emotions and instincts.

The next stage in the individual's life is integration into the mature world of the computerized economy, i.e., when he becomes a "stakeholder." He accepts a world that does away with human values and subordinates him to "market values." Furthermore, he is bound to lose his sense of privacy.

It follows that almost everyone willingly accepts that advancement in life and career increasingly requires having electronic conversations with machines — and eventually robots — that will never ask us what our personal assumptions and/or values are, and have no intentions of doing so. In short, our resistance to the machine fades. It is "far easier to assign the intelligence solely to the machine than to seek out those tortured pathways" to the human urges within us. Society itself, not just the individual, says Talbott, "is unsurprisingly assuming the character of our technology."

The outcome is grim: "Historically, there appears to be an element of tragedy in all this. We stumble along in ignorance and, by the time we realize the subtle ways our actions have caught up with us, the damage and loss are already irrevocable."

Technology expresses itself in numbers and computations divorced from human values. Efficiency is nearly the sole criterion by which modern corporations make decisions, and it is no accident that these two ideas, human values versus efficiency, are mutually exclusive. In objecting to the mess we humans have created, Talbott notes: "If you want human values, if you want qualitative distinctions, then your theoretical constructs must retain those values and distinctions every step of the way. The minute you allow them to collapse into number alone, you have no way to get back from there to the qualitative world."

Despite these tragic overtones, he argues that we can and must return to that qualitative world where we can realize our deepest human qualities. We can retain our humanity in connection to the natural world, despite using tools skillfully, as exemplified by the wily trickster Odysseus, as well as Tomo, a member of the Waorani Indians in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador who demonstrated phenomenal knowledge of his world.

His prescription for humanity's emergence from this present Dark Age also includes developing a strong sense of history. We must realize how other humans expressed their individuality, and realized their hopes and dreams. Despite the fact that Americans generally have little appreciation for or cognizance of history, there may come a time when reading history may be the only place to find models of human behavior that went against the technophilic grain.

Interspersed throughout his analysis, Talbott offers suggestions to arrest this headlong rush into a mechanized future. They tend to be general in nature, such as urging us to seek a sense of "place," and to engage in conversations with our fellow men (and even our machines) to remind them of our human needs. Echoing Edward Abbey, who attempted to alert us to the environmental disasters of the 1960's with books like The Monkey Wrench Gang, Talbott writes, "This may at times require us to throw a wrench into the machinery in order to serve the worthy human intentions behind it."

Despite Talbott's skills as a writer, the book, sadly, has some substantial flaws. Two of the most obvious are the overly long digressions into the stories of Jacques Lusseyran and Martha Beck, which admittedly are fascinating, but delay the presentation of more topical material. Furthermore, they suggest that Talbott is misidentifying the emotional power of those stories as proof of his arguments, and thus committing the common error of anecdotal evidence. Even worse, they border on romanticizing blindness and Down syndrome, respectively.

He also fails to address a major factor in our growing discontent with the Information Age: the nonstop ratcheting up of our expectations, driven largely by marketing on the seller side, and a lack of philosophic questioning on the consumer side.

A common pattern in the book is a deep criticism of any given aspect or consequence of technology, to the extent that Talbott appears to be arguing that we should do away with it completely. But he often then wraps up his analysis by briefly contradicting the earlier implication, and stating that he does not believe the phenomenon at issue should be eradicated. This schizophrenic reasoning mixes bold, blanket criticisms with assurances to the contrary. Yet one may argue that, with so much of current social discourse failing to question technology, its critics must never err with overly cautious warnings.

There are other problems in his analysis: He invests much hope in what he terms "conversation," "meaning," and "value" — not clearly specified, and yet spoken of highly. He fears machine intelligence (and perhaps rightly so), and doubts its viability, but fails to understand its potential for emergence. Even though a former computer programmer, he does not seem to understand the value of abstraction, and the possibility that it can be used beneficially, without being considered the only source of important knowledge. Lastly, it is odd that he does not cite the pioneering work of a well-known predecessor, Jacques Ellul, in The Technological Society.

Nonetheless, the issues that Talbott raises are of critical importance — so much so that they make his lapses of logic that much more maddening. Because so much is at stake, our efforts at analyzing, understanding, and solving these problems, must be proportionally energetic and effective. Technophiles may dismiss his entire effort based upon the book's weaknesses, and consequently miss out on the valuable gist of his viewpoint. Similarly, impatient readers in our age of limited attention spans, might not make it through the aforesaid tangents, and likewise miss out.

The issues that he discusses should be raised more often and more loudly, with broader acceptance and expansion of the debate and its importance. Otherwise, we will continue our robotic march deeper into a future that is controlled more by soulless devices, and less by skeptical humans. If we fail completely to change course, we may be saddled with a life that is intolerable to the human spirit.

Devices of the Soul is an insightful, disturbing, imperfect, eloquent, and important contribution to what may ultimately become the most critical debate in the intensifying conflict between humans and our technological creations: Humans may survive, but will our humanity?

Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. Dan Sisson is an adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University, where he has taught technology courses for the past eight years; he is an authority on Thomas Jefferson, is author of The American Revolution of 1800, and is currently building and living in a replica of Monticello.

You can purchase Devices of the Soul from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "If a Web site needs to be developed as quickly as possible, or it needs to support collaborative content, then usually the best approach is to use a content management system (CMS). There are many CMSs from which a Web developer could choose, including Drupal, which is considered by many to be the most powerful, extensible, and logically organized of them all. Installing Drupal and using it to create a simple site, is fairly straightforward, in part due to its relatively excellent documentation. For much of its existence, there has been far less information available on how to extend a Drupal site with one's own modules, themes, blocks, etc. That need is now met by a new book, Pro Drupal Development." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. Pro Drupal Development author John K. VanDyk and Matt Westgate pages 428 publisher Apress rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590597559 summary A detailed guide to customizing a Drupal-based Web site

The book was written by John K. VanDyk and Matt Westgate, both of whom are experienced computer programmers, who years earlier had created their own CMS. In their book's Introduction, they confess to discovering Drupal and its many advantages, switching over to it, and presumably abandoning further development of their own CMS. This speaks volumes about their regard for Drupal, because an individual programmer or programming team can give no greater vote of confidence for a technological product than to voluntarily end primary allegiance to a competing product that they themselves birthed and nurtured.

Pro Drupal Development was published by Apress, on 16 April 2007, under the ISBNs 1590597559 and 978-1590597552. The publisher offers a Web page on their site dedicated to the book, where the visitor will find all of the book's source code, as well as the table of contents and a sample chapter (Chapter 8 — The Theme System), in PDF format. In addition, there is a link for errata, which leads to the authors' own book site. At the time of this writing, there are three dozen entries, contributed by the authors and their readers. The authors' site also has links for downloading the source code by individual chapter, and a blog that focuses on the book.

The book's material, spanning 428 pages, is organized into 23 chapters and two appendices. Unlike the majority of technical books nowadays, this one does not have the chapters organized into labeled parts. Nonetheless, the chapters and appendices roughly fall into three categories: how Drupal works (Chapters 1, 19, and 23, and Appendix A), how to customize it (Chapters 2-18 and 22), and how to optimize your Drupal development efforts (Chapters 20-21, and Appendix B). The customization chapters cover a wide range of topics: modules, menus, databases, users, nodes, themes, blocks, forms, filtering, searching, indexing, files, taxonomy, caching, sessions, jQuery, localization, and optimization.

Each one of these topics is explored in laudable detail, with plenty of sample code and figures to illustrate the key concepts. The greatest strength of this book is the depth of its coverage, and the methodical way that the authors go about presenting the material. They are clearly quite serious about Drupal itself, and about conveying to the reader all of the knowledge that they believe is important for the reader to master. In fact, anyone attempting to read the book cover to cover might find the presentation quite dry, with no evidence of humor or even a sense of fun, unlike so many other recent programming books. On the other hand, one can argue that the value of this information alone to the reader who is equally serious about mastering Drupal, should be sufficient. Regardless, be warned that this is definitely not a book that one can read through at a fast pace, absorbing the bulk of the information. The innards of Drupal alone make it a challenging subject for dissection; learning how to modify Drupal's behavior, is even more so.

Yet if anyone is interested in mastering the inner workings of Drupal, and how to customize them, this is the book of choice. It may be a bit dry, but it is quite meaty, and the material is clearly presented. Moreover, the publisher, Apress, has done an admirable job with this title. The layout is clear; the index is substantial; and, as with their other titles, they offer two different versions of the table of contents — high-level, listing the chapter titles only, and detailed, listing the sections and subsections within those chapters.

Another aspect of this book that I applaud is the efficient use of page space, through the use of top and bottom margins that are noticeably smaller than those found in the typical computer programming book. This is especially true of the bottom margins. For instance, on page 117, the text comes within one centimeter of the bottom edges the page — something I've never seen before in a professionally printed book. At first it might strike one as sloppy, but actually should be appreciated by anyone who is tired of technical books using excessive margins for padding out a much more limited amount of information into an even greater number of pages. This is a practice that I would recommend to all other publishers, technical or otherwise.

However, the book does have some weaknesses, which is probably to be expected in any first edition. The sample source code in many cases could benefit from more use of whitespace — particularly for the PHP code. But with any code found in a book, there is always the possibility that such instances of compressed code result from a conscious decision given the limited width of the printed page. But in most such cases in this book, that reason would not be applicable.

The authors do not warn the reader that a solid understanding of PHP is needed for using the book's ideas and sample code. Near the end of the Introduction, they suggest that if the reader is new to Drupal, then he or she should read the chapters in sequence. The authors should also note that if the reader is new to PHP, then it would be better to first get up to speed on PHP before trying to digest and make use of this book. Such points might be obvious to most readers, but they should be clarified up front, perhaps in the Introduction, for the benefit of anyone browsing this title in a bookstore, and wondering if they already possess the technical know-how required by the book.

Similarly, the authors also do not mention that the book is, for the most part, only applicable to Drupal version 5, and not version 4 or earlier versions, since there have been some dramatic changes with the release of version 5. In fact, given the extent of the changes and how that would impact the utility of the book depending upon what version of Drupal the reader is using, it should be noted on the book's cover, as an increasing number of publishers are doing.

A couple of minor problems were in evidence in the first dozen pages. On page 3, the authors refer to "user 1," which is likely to confuse most readers, because it looks like a username, and would be unfamiliar to someone who has installed Drupal and created a Web site, without extensive reading of the Drupal documentation. On page 11, the authors discuss core modules, and where they can be seen listed in the administration area of Drupal. But the path that they provide, "sites/all/modules," is incorrect, because that is where user-added modules are placed, of which there are none in a default installation. (The second mention of that path, in the fourth paragraph, is correct.)

Lastly, when the book is opened up to any of the pages not near the center, the book immediately flops closed. The use of lay-flat binding is strongly urged, for future editions of this book and all others that Apress offers.

Despite these weaknesses — all of which are fixable — Pro Drupal Development is strongly recommended for any PHP programmer who wants a truly in-depth look at how Drupal works and how to make the most of it.

Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.

You can purchase Pro Drupal Development from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Database programmers using MySQL frequently have a need to verify the name or parameter list of a MySQL function, or to check a statement or the data types available within its implementation of SQL. This typically occurs when the programmer is caught up in a coding session, and would much rather not break their creative flow by searching Web sites for the needed information, or stepping away from their computer to hunt for a reference book. In these cases, nothing could be more valuable than a concise summary of all SQL statements and MySQL functions, in a form compact enough to be kept within reach on the desk or tacked up to the nearest wall space. This is the goal of the VisiBone MySQL Cards and Charts." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. MySQL Cards and Charts author Bob Stein pages 4 publisher VisiBone rating 10 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN N/A summary High-quality reference materials for MySQL functions and SQL statements These two products contain the same information, with the same formatting and color coding. They differ primarily in their construction, sizes, and likely destinations. The MySQL Cards — often referred to as cheat sheets — are 8.5 by 11 inches in size, made of card stock that has been laminated on both sides of each pair of cards, for a total of four pages of information. The MySQL Chart is 24 by 33.3 inches, printed of course on only one side. The VisiBone Web page devoted to these products notes that the cards have the advantage of portability, while the chart has the advantage of presenting all of the information in one glance. (The Web site fails to mention that the large chart has the additional advantage that it can be used to cover blemishes on a wall, such as those caused by a Web programmer banging his head against it when wrestling with browser incompatibilities.)

The March 2007 edition of the cards and chart cover MySQL version 5.2 and ISO/ANSI SQL 2003 specification. Such a tremendous amount of technical information needed to be packed into relatively small form factors, offering limited space — especially compared to books. Consequently, all of the available space had to be used judiciously. That is precisely what Bob Stein, principal of VisiBone, has accomplished with these items. Each one diagrams the syntax for 84 SQL statements and 236 MySQL functions and operators. In a private communication, Mr. Stein noted that no fewer than 194 of MySQL's 225 reserved words are included. (Of the remaining 31 reserved words, 7 are apparently not used anywhere in MySQL, 13 are quite obscure, and 11 are functionally synonymous with other terms — mostly column types from other database engines.)

Given the small amount of space available, there would be the danger of the material being difficult to read. Fortunately, Mr. Stein utilized shades of gray, white and black, blue (to indicate MySQL statements that are not standard ISO/ANSI), and the occasional red (to indicate the most commonly needed information). He also made full use of space on the right hand side of each page, for the largest sidebars, and the remaining space in the middle, for more modestly sized topics. Lastly, he chose a readable type size of 9 points.

The MySQL Cards present the SQL statements and MySQL functions separately, each on their own cards, in alphabetical order. The SQL statements are less horizontally linear and more diagrammatic, to indicate alternative and optional keywords. For each function, the return data type and parameters are given, as well as a pithy summary of what the function does, or an illustrative example. There are a total of 182 examples of the functions and operators, all tested.

The MySQL Chart includes the identical information provided by the cards, but with all of the SQL statements listed down the left-hand side, and all of the MySQL functions down the right-hand side.

Reviews of technical materials oftentimes focus exclusively on the product itself, with no mention as to its delivery. That might make sense for a technical book that could be ordered, packaged, and shipped from any one of many online bookstores, or purchased in person at a local bricks-and-mortar bookstore. In contrast, these MySQL products, like all other VisiBone products, are packaged and shipped from the company's only location, in Brunswick, Maine. The smaller size of such an operation allows for greater attention to each individual shipment. Furthermore, the cards are mailed in sturdy cardboard flats, with directions not to be bent. Charts are mailed in double-hulled cardboard tubes that are even more sturdy.

It is rare that one encounters such excellent products in the fast-paced world of technical publishing. However, I can offer just two minor suggestions for improvement. Even though the color choices generally work quite well, the medium gray used as the background color is probably not the best choice, since almost all of the text is in black. A lighter shade of gray — perhaps that used for a couple of the sidebars, such as "GROUP_CONCAT()" — with a corresponding change in those sidebars, would make the text stand out more.

The only other weakness I found was the use of the term "Habitat," as an adjective for "Shell," "PHP," and "Web Browser." The meaning may be immediately obvious to those of greater intelligence than myself (not that that narrows the field), but my presumption was not confirmed until I saw mention of the term on the aforesaid Web site. The term "Sample" would be more clear.

The chart is the ideal size for a poster, and the 8.5"x11" cards work well; but if the cards were folded into two or three panels, they would be easier to stand up on a desk, and not get buried underneath papers and books.

Nonetheless, the overall quality of these cards and charts is outstanding; the information they offer is accurate, up-to-date, and neatly presented; the protective packaging was appreciated. Even the levity was a nice touch: Despite the limited unused space on the cards, Mr. Stein manages to still squeeze in a bit of humor concerning ISBN bar codes.

Looking over these materials would, for anyone non-technical, probably cause their eyes to glaze over. But for the dedicated MySQL programmer, it can be a humbling experience, largely because it reveals just how little of the language is known or used on a regular basis — by most database programmers, or, at least, by this one. Slowly perusing the information-rich pages, I found myself delighted to discover for the first time functions and statements that would allow my future MySQL code to do more natively, within uncompiled statements, stored procedures, and triggers, without resorting to performing the processing within PHP or whatever other application language will be used.

Lastly, each shipment is accompanied by a letter from Mr. Stein, in which expresses to the customer his appreciation for their order, and his genuine excitement in the potential that any developer has to use his tools to help develop something great. He makes clear that the focus of his efforts is to create "visualization technology for web designers" that will help them do their job better.

Although these items are not books, the VisiBone MySQL Cards and Charts could easily replace the typical MySQL reference book for most occasions when a question of language syntax needs to be resolved as quickly and conveniently as possible. I especially recommend the MySQL Cards, not only for the wealth of information, but for the way that it put all of it "at mental fingertip reach."

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.

Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Database programmers using MySQL frequently have a need to verify the name or parameter list of a MySQL function, or to check a statement or the data types available within its implementation of SQL. This typically occurs when the programmer is caught up in a coding session, and would much rather not break their creative flow by searching Web sites for the needed information, or stepping away from their computer to hunt for a reference book. In these cases, nothing could be more valuable than a concise summary of all SQL statements and MySQL functions, in a form compact enough to be kept within reach on the desk or tacked up to the nearest wall space. This is the goal of the VisiBone MySQL Cards and Charts." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. MySQL Cards and Charts author Bob Stein pages 4 publisher VisiBone rating 10 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN N/A summary High-quality reference materials for MySQL functions and SQL statements These two products contain the same information, with the same formatting and color coding. They differ primarily in their construction, sizes, and likely destinations. The MySQL Cards — often referred to as cheat sheets — are 8.5 by 11 inches in size, made of card stock that has been laminated on both sides of each pair of cards, for a total of four pages of information. The MySQL Chart is 24 by 33.3 inches, printed of course on only one side. The VisiBone Web page devoted to these products notes that the cards have the advantage of portability, while the chart has the advantage of presenting all of the information in one glance. (The Web site fails to mention that the large chart has the additional advantage that it can be used to cover blemishes on a wall, such as those caused by a Web programmer banging his head against it when wrestling with browser incompatibilities.)

The March 2007 edition of the cards and chart cover MySQL version 5.2 and ISO/ANSI SQL 2003 specification. Such a tremendous amount of technical information needed to be packed into relatively small form factors, offering limited space — especially compared to books. Consequently, all of the available space had to be used judiciously. That is precisely what Bob Stein, principal of VisiBone, has accomplished with these items. Each one diagrams the syntax for 84 SQL statements and 236 MySQL functions and operators. In a private communication, Mr. Stein noted that no fewer than 194 of MySQL's 225 reserved words are included. (Of the remaining 31 reserved words, 7 are apparently not used anywhere in MySQL, 13 are quite obscure, and 11 are functionally synonymous with other terms — mostly column types from other database engines.)

Given the small amount of space available, there would be the danger of the material being difficult to read. Fortunately, Mr. Stein utilized shades of gray, white and black, blue (to indicate MySQL statements that are not standard ISO/ANSI), and the occasional red (to indicate the most commonly needed information). He also made full use of space on the right hand side of each page, for the largest sidebars, and the remaining space in the middle, for more modestly sized topics. Lastly, he chose a readable type size of 9 points.

The MySQL Cards present the SQL statements and MySQL functions separately, each on their own cards, in alphabetical order. The SQL statements are less horizontally linear and more diagrammatic, to indicate alternative and optional keywords. For each function, the return data type and parameters are given, as well as a pithy summary of what the function does, or an illustrative example. There are a total of 182 examples of the functions and operators, all tested.

The MySQL Chart includes the identical information provided by the cards, but with all of the SQL statements listed down the left-hand side, and all of the MySQL functions down the right-hand side.

Reviews of technical materials oftentimes focus exclusively on the product itself, with no mention as to its delivery. That might make sense for a technical book that could be ordered, packaged, and shipped from any one of many online bookstores, or purchased in person at a local bricks-and-mortar bookstore. In contrast, these MySQL products, like all other VisiBone products, are packaged and shipped from the company's only location, in Brunswick, Maine. The smaller size of such an operation allows for greater attention to each individual shipment. Furthermore, the cards are mailed in sturdy cardboard flats, with directions not to be bent. Charts are mailed in double-hulled cardboard tubes that are even more sturdy.

It is rare that one encounters such excellent products in the fast-paced world of technical publishing. However, I can offer just two minor suggestions for improvement. Even though the color choices generally work quite well, the medium gray used as the background color is probably not the best choice, since almost all of the text is in black. A lighter shade of gray — perhaps that used for a couple of the sidebars, such as "GROUP_CONCAT()" — with a corresponding change in those sidebars, would make the text stand out more.

The only other weakness I found was the use of the term "Habitat," as an adjective for "Shell," "PHP," and "Web Browser." The meaning may be immediately obvious to those of greater intelligence than myself (not that that narrows the field), but my presumption was not confirmed until I saw mention of the term on the aforesaid Web site. The term "Sample" would be more clear.

The chart is the ideal size for a poster, and the 8.5"x11" cards work well; but if the cards were folded into two or three panels, they would be easier to stand up on a desk, and not get buried underneath papers and books.

Nonetheless, the overall quality of these cards and charts is outstanding; the information they offer is accurate, up-to-date, and neatly presented; the protective packaging was appreciated. Even the levity was a nice touch: Despite the limited unused space on the cards, Mr. Stein manages to still squeeze in a bit of humor concerning ISBN bar codes.

Looking over these materials would, for anyone non-technical, probably cause their eyes to glaze over. But for the dedicated MySQL programmer, it can be a humbling experience, largely because it reveals just how little of the language is known or used on a regular basis — by most database programmers, or, at least, by this one. Slowly perusing the information-rich pages, I found myself delighted to discover for the first time functions and statements that would allow my future MySQL code to do more natively, within uncompiled statements, stored procedures, and triggers, without resorting to performing the processing within PHP or whatever other application language will be used.

Lastly, each shipment is accompanied by a letter from Mr. Stein, in which expresses to the customer his appreciation for their order, and his genuine excitement in the potential that any developer has to use his tools to help develop something great. He makes clear that the focus of his efforts is to create "visualization technology for web designers" that will help them do their job better.

Although these items are not books, the VisiBone MySQL Cards and Charts could easily replace the typical MySQL reference book for most occasions when a question of language syntax needs to be resolved as quickly and conveniently as possible. I especially recommend the MySQL Cards, not only for the wealth of information, but for the way that it put all of it "at mental fingertip reach."

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.

Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "MySQL may be the most popular open source relational database management system (RDBMS) in the world, but during the first decade of its existence, it lacked support for stored programs, i.e., store procedures, functions, and triggers. The major commercial RDBMS vendors — including Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft — could point to this deficiency as reason enough to choose their proprietary systems over MySQL or any other open source system, such as PostgreSQL. But with the release of MySQL version 5.0, in October 2005, the "little database engine that could" dramatically improved its position against the competition. The most comprehensive discussion of these new capabilities is in the book MySQL Stored Procedure Programming." Read below for the rest of Michael's review MySQL Stored Procedure Programming author Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein pages 636 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596100892 summary A comprehensive guide to developing MySQL stored procedures, functions, and triggers.

Written by Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein, and published by O'Reilly Media in March 2006 under the ISBNs 0596100892 and 978-0596100896, this book is the first one to offer database programmers a full discussion of the syntax, usage, and optimization of MySQL stored procedures, stored functions, and triggers — which the authors wisely refer to collectively as "stored programs," to simplify the manuscript. Even a year after the introduction of these new capabilities in MySQL, they have received remarkably little coverage by book publishers. Admittedly, there are three such chapters in MySQL Administrator's Guide and Language Reference (2nd Edition), written by some of the developers of MySQL, and published by MySQL Press. Yet this latter book — even though published a month after O'Reilly's — devotes fewer than 50 pages to stored programs, and the material is not in the printed book itself, but in the "MySQL Language Reference" part, on the accompanying CD. That material, in conjunction with the online reference documentation, may be sufficient for the more simple stored program development needs. But for any MySQL developer who wishes to understand in-depth how to make the most of this new functionality in version 5.0, they will likely need a much more substantial treatment — and that's exactly what Harrison and Feuerstein have created.

The authors are generous in both the technical information and development advice that they offer. The book's material spans 636 pages, organized into 23 chapters, grouped into four parts, followed by an index. The first part, "Stored Programming Fundamentals," provides an introduction and then a tutorial, both taking a broad view of MySQL stored programs. The remaining four chapters cover language fundamentals; blocks, conditional statements, and iterative programming; SQL; and error handling. The book's second part, "Stored Program Construction," may be considered the heart of the book, because its five chapters present the details of creating stored programs in general, using transaction management, using MySQL's built-in functions, and creating one's own stored functions, as well as triggers. The third part, "Using MySQL Stored Programs and Applications," explains some of the advantages and disadvantages of stored programs, and then illustrates how to call those stored programs from source code written in any one of five different programming languages: PHP, Java, Perl, Python, and Microsoft.NET. In the fourth and final part, "Optimizing Stored Programs," the authors focus on the security and tuning of stored programs, tuning SQL, optimizing the code, and optimizing the development process itself.

This is a substantial book, encompassing a great deal of technical as well as advisory information. Consequently, no review such as this can hope to describe or critically comment upon every section of every chapter of every part. Yet the overall quality and utility of the manuscript can be discerned simply by choosing just one of the aforesaid Web programming languages, and writing some code in that language to call some MySQL stored procedures and functions, to get results from a test database — and developing all of this code while relying solely upon the book under review. Creating some simple stored procedures, and calling them from some PHP and Perl scripts, demonstrated to me that MySQL Stored Procedure Programming contains more than enough coverage of the topics to be an invaluable guide in developing the most common functionality that a programmer would need to implement.

The book appears to have very few aspects or specific sections in need of improvement. The discussion of variable scoping, in Chapter 4, is too cursory (no database pun intended). In terms of the book's sample code, I found countless cases of inconsistency of formatting — specifically, operators such as "||" and "=" being jammed up against their adjacent elements, without any whitespace to improve readability. These minor flaws could be easily remedied in the next edition. Some programming books make similar mistakes, but throughout their text, which is even worse. Fortunately, most of the code in this book is neatly formatted, and the variable and program names are generally descriptive enough.

Some of the book's material could have been left out without great loss — thereby reducing the book's size, weight, and presumably price. The two chapters on basic and advanced SQL tuning contain techniques and recommendations covered with equal skill in other MySQL books, and were not needed in this one. On the other hand, sloppy developers who churn out lamentable code might argue that the last chapter, which focuses on best programming practices, could also be excised; but those are the very individuals who need those recommendations the most.

Fortunately, the few weaknesses in the book are completely overwhelmed by its positive qualities, of which there are many. The coverage of the topics is quite extensive, but without the repetition often seen in many other technical books of this size. The explanations are written with clarity, and provide enough detail for any experienced database programmer to understand the general concepts, as well as the specific details. The sample code effectively illustrates the ideas presented in the narration. The font, layout, organization, and fold-flat binding of this book, all make it a joy to read — as is characteristic of many of O'Reilly's titles.

Moreover, any programming book that manages to lighten the load of the reader by offering a touch of humor here and there, cannot be all bad. Steven Feuerstein is the author of several well-regarded books on Oracle, and it was nice to see him poke some fun at the database heavyweight, in his choice of sample code to demonstrate the my_replace() function: my_replace( 'We love the Oracle server', 'Oracle', 'MySQL').

The prospective reader who would like to learn more about this book, can consult its Web page on O'Reilly's site. There they will find both short and full descriptions, confirmed and unconfirmed errata, a link for writing a reader review, an online table of contents and index, and a sample chapter (number 6, "Error Handling"), in PDF format. In addition, the visitor can download all of the sample code in the book (562 files) and the sample database, as a mysqldump file.

Overall, MySQL Stored Procedure Programming is adeptly written, neatly organized, and exhaustive in its coverage of the topics. It is and likely will remain the premier printed resource for Web and database developers who want to learn how to create and optimize stored procedures, functions, and triggers within MySQL.

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase MySQL Stored Procedure Programming from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "MySQL may be the most popular open source relational database management system (RDBMS) in the world, but during the first decade of its existence, it lacked support for stored programs, i.e., store procedures, functions, and triggers. The major commercial RDBMS vendors — including Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft — could point to this deficiency as reason enough to choose their proprietary systems over MySQL or any other open source system, such as PostgreSQL. But with the release of MySQL version 5.0, in October 2005, the "little database engine that could" dramatically improved its position against the competition. The most comprehensive discussion of these new capabilities is in the book MySQL Stored Procedure Programming." Read below for the rest of Michael's review MySQL Stored Procedure Programming author Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein pages 636 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596100892 summary A comprehensive guide to developing MySQL stored procedures, functions, and triggers.

Written by Guy Harrison and Steven Feuerstein, and published by O'Reilly Media in March 2006 under the ISBNs 0596100892 and 978-0596100896, this book is the first one to offer database programmers a full discussion of the syntax, usage, and optimization of MySQL stored procedures, stored functions, and triggers — which the authors wisely refer to collectively as "stored programs," to simplify the manuscript. Even a year after the introduction of these new capabilities in MySQL, they have received remarkably little coverage by book publishers. Admittedly, there are three such chapters in MySQL Administrator's Guide and Language Reference (2nd Edition), written by some of the developers of MySQL, and published by MySQL Press. Yet this latter book — even though published a month after O'Reilly's — devotes fewer than 50 pages to stored programs, and the material is not in the printed book itself, but in the "MySQL Language Reference" part, on the accompanying CD. That material, in conjunction with the online reference documentation, may be sufficient for the more simple stored program development needs. But for any MySQL developer who wishes to understand in-depth how to make the most of this new functionality in version 5.0, they will likely need a much more substantial treatment — and that's exactly what Harrison and Feuerstein have created.

The authors are generous in both the technical information and development advice that they offer. The book's material spans 636 pages, organized into 23 chapters, grouped into four parts, followed by an index. The first part, "Stored Programming Fundamentals," provides an introduction and then a tutorial, both taking a broad view of MySQL stored programs. The remaining four chapters cover language fundamentals; blocks, conditional statements, and iterative programming; SQL; and error handling. The book's second part, "Stored Program Construction," may be considered the heart of the book, because its five chapters present the details of creating stored programs in general, using transaction management, using MySQL's built-in functions, and creating one's own stored functions, as well as triggers. The third part, "Using MySQL Stored Programs and Applications," explains some of the advantages and disadvantages of stored programs, and then illustrates how to call those stored programs from source code written in any one of five different programming languages: PHP, Java, Perl, Python, and Microsoft.NET. In the fourth and final part, "Optimizing Stored Programs," the authors focus on the security and tuning of stored programs, tuning SQL, optimizing the code, and optimizing the development process itself.

This is a substantial book, encompassing a great deal of technical as well as advisory information. Consequently, no review such as this can hope to describe or critically comment upon every section of every chapter of every part. Yet the overall quality and utility of the manuscript can be discerned simply by choosing just one of the aforesaid Web programming languages, and writing some code in that language to call some MySQL stored procedures and functions, to get results from a test database — and developing all of this code while relying solely upon the book under review. Creating some simple stored procedures, and calling them from some PHP and Perl scripts, demonstrated to me that MySQL Stored Procedure Programming contains more than enough coverage of the topics to be an invaluable guide in developing the most common functionality that a programmer would need to implement.

The book appears to have very few aspects or specific sections in need of improvement. The discussion of variable scoping, in Chapter 4, is too cursory (no database pun intended). In terms of the book's sample code, I found countless cases of inconsistency of formatting — specifically, operators such as "||" and "=" being jammed up against their adjacent elements, without any whitespace to improve readability. These minor flaws could be easily remedied in the next edition. Some programming books make similar mistakes, but throughout their text, which is even worse. Fortunately, most of the code in this book is neatly formatted, and the variable and program names are generally descriptive enough.

Some of the book's material could have been left out without great loss — thereby reducing the book's size, weight, and presumably price. The two chapters on basic and advanced SQL tuning contain techniques and recommendations covered with equal skill in other MySQL books, and were not needed in this one. On the other hand, sloppy developers who churn out lamentable code might argue that the last chapter, which focuses on best programming practices, could also be excised; but those are the very individuals who need those recommendations the most.

Fortunately, the few weaknesses in the book are completely overwhelmed by its positive qualities, of which there are many. The coverage of the topics is quite extensive, but without the repetition often seen in many other technical books of this size. The explanations are written with clarity, and provide enough detail for any experienced database programmer to understand the general concepts, as well as the specific details. The sample code effectively illustrates the ideas presented in the narration. The font, layout, organization, and fold-flat binding of this book, all make it a joy to read — as is characteristic of many of O'Reilly's titles.

Moreover, any programming book that manages to lighten the load of the reader by offering a touch of humor here and there, cannot be all bad. Steven Feuerstein is the author of several well-regarded books on Oracle, and it was nice to see him poke some fun at the database heavyweight, in his choice of sample code to demonstrate the my_replace() function: my_replace( 'We love the Oracle server', 'Oracle', 'MySQL').

The prospective reader who would like to learn more about this book, can consult its Web page on O'Reilly's site. There they will find both short and full descriptions, confirmed and unconfirmed errata, a link for writing a reader review, an online table of contents and index, and a sample chapter (number 6, "Error Handling"), in PDF format. In addition, the visitor can download all of the sample code in the book (562 files) and the sample database, as a mysqldump file.

Overall, MySQL Stored Procedure Programming is adeptly written, neatly organized, and exhaustive in its coverage of the topics. It is and likely will remain the premier printed resource for Web and database developers who want to learn how to create and optimize stored procedures, functions, and triggers within MySQL.

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase MySQL Stored Procedure Programming from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "MySQL database administrators and developers have several options for MySQL reference sources, though naturally none of them are ideal in all situations. The online MySQL documentation is extensive, but the most commonly needed nuggets are buried in its necessarily exhaustive contents. Third-party MySQL reference books can winnow out some of the rarely-used minutia, but they still encompass hundreds of pages, reflecting the complexity of the subject. For quickly looking up the most frequently used command syntax and other details, a MySQL user would usually be best served by a much more compact book, such as MySQL Pocket Reference." Read below for the rest of Michael's review. MySQL Pocket Reference author George Reese pages 96 publisher O'Reilly rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059600446X summary Great for quickly looking up the most frequently used command syntax and other details of MySQL

Written by George Reese, this book was published by O'Reilly Media, in February 2003. It may span only 96 pages, and weigh only 3.2 ounces, but it packs a substantial amount of useful information into a diminutive form. The book's material is organized into several sections, covering MySQL installation, command-line tools, data types, SQL, operators, functions, and table types.

After presenting a quick introduction and some other housekeeping topics, the author briefly explains how to install, configure, and start up MySQL, as well as how to set the root password. This RDBMS includes a dozen command-line tools, and the author next provides the briefest of summaries for each one, and more details on the most commonly used one, mysql.

The next four sections compose the meat of the book, as they cover the MySQL data types, SQL query language, operators, and functions. Of all the aspects of any programming language or RDBMS, the one that frequently causes the most confusion — and for which a handy reference guide would be most appreciated — is the proper use of data types. In MySQL Pocket Reference, the author presents all of the MySQL data types, grouped into numerics, strings, dates, and complex types. For each data type, the author shows the declaration syntax, the storage space required, and the purpose of the data type.

MySQL version 4.0 supports ANSI SQL 92, as well as some proprietary extensions, which is true for most if not all substantial RDBMSs. Reese explains the case sensitivity of MySQL for various contexts; the use of literals, including escape sequences; the rules concerning identifier naming and aliasing; and how to insert comments in your code. Much more space is devoted to all of the MySQL commands, ranging from ALTER TABLE to USE. For each command, the reader is shown the syntax, including optional keywords, clauses, and other elements, as well as a generous number of illustrative examples.

The last three sections of the book cover operators (arithmetic, comparison, and logical), functions (aggregate and otherwise), and table types. The section on functions will likely get a lot of use from the average reader, as it is relatively easy to forget the name and parameter list of any function — particularly if it has not been used by the developer for some time, and is not present in the surrounding code.

Like any pocket reference book, this one is not intended to serve as a full reference source or as a MySQL tutorial — of which O'Reilly offers several. Rather, it is best used for quickly answering questions concerning command syntax, operator precedence, function parameter order, or any of the other MySQL language details that are not listed automatically by programming editors, nor otherwise immediately obvious. Yet despite its small size, this book contains information that may be unknown to even some of the most experienced MySQL administrators and programmers. For instance, I had no idea that 2007-04-00 is considered a valid date. (I only wish that my taxes were due on that day.)

O'Reilly Media has a Web page on their site that provides some additional resources related to this book. These include links for reading the reviews offered by other readers, submitting your own review, and checking the errata for the book, of which there are 20, as of this writing — 19 of which have been confirmed.

There appear to be only two flaws in this book. It lacks a list of MySQL reserved words, which is odd for a reference book. Also, the text on every page is set too close to the binding, thus compelling the reader to force open the book more than should be necessary, just to comfortably read the inmost ends of the lines of text. This could be easily fixed in a subsequent edition, by moving the text outwards approximately half a centimeter, since the outer margins are much wider than necessary.

Speaking of editions, because this first edition of the book appeared in early 2003, it covers up to version 4.0 of MySQL. One can only hope that a second edition will be made available at some point in the future, so that it can be brought up to date with all of the new additions to MySQL 5, which are substantial. These include cursors, stored procedures, triggers, and views.

Nonetheless, this first edition would be of value to anyone using MySQL. In essence, MySQL Pocket Reference is neatly organized, extremely portable, and packs much valuable information into a succinct format.

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround."

You can purchase MySQL Pocket Reference from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "MySQL database administrators and developers have several options for MySQL reference sources, though naturally none of them are ideal in all situations. The online MySQL documentation is extensive, but the most commonly needed nuggets are buried in its necessarily exhaustive contents. Third-party MySQL reference books can winnow out some of the rarely-used minutia, but they still encompass hundreds of pages, reflecting the complexity of the subject. For quickly looking up the most frequently used command syntax and other details, a MySQL user would usually be best served by a much more compact book, such as MySQL Pocket Reference." Read below for the rest of Michael's review. MySQL Pocket Reference author George Reese pages 96 publisher O'Reilly rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059600446X summary Great for quickly looking up the most frequently used command syntax and other details of MySQL

Written by George Reese, this book was published by O'Reilly Media, in February 2003. It may span only 96 pages, and weigh only 3.2 ounces, but it packs a substantial amount of useful information into a diminutive form. The book's material is organized into several sections, covering MySQL installation, command-line tools, data types, SQL, operators, functions, and table types.

After presenting a quick introduction and some other housekeeping topics, the author briefly explains how to install, configure, and start up MySQL, as well as how to set the root password. This RDBMS includes a dozen command-line tools, and the author next provides the briefest of summaries for each one, and more details on the most commonly used one, mysql.

The next four sections compose the meat of the book, as they cover the MySQL data types, SQL query language, operators, and functions. Of all the aspects of any programming language or RDBMS, the one that frequently causes the most confusion — and for which a handy reference guide would be most appreciated — is the proper use of data types. In MySQL Pocket Reference, the author presents all of the MySQL data types, grouped into numerics, strings, dates, and complex types. For each data type, the author shows the declaration syntax, the storage space required, and the purpose of the data type.

MySQL version 4.0 supports ANSI SQL 92, as well as some proprietary extensions, which is true for most if not all substantial RDBMSs. Reese explains the case sensitivity of MySQL for various contexts; the use of literals, including escape sequences; the rules concerning identifier naming and aliasing; and how to insert comments in your code. Much more space is devoted to all of the MySQL commands, ranging from ALTER TABLE to USE. For each command, the reader is shown the syntax, including optional keywords, clauses, and other elements, as well as a generous number of illustrative examples.

The last three sections of the book cover operators (arithmetic, comparison, and logical), functions (aggregate and otherwise), and table types. The section on functions will likely get a lot of use from the average reader, as it is relatively easy to forget the name and parameter list of any function — particularly if it has not been used by the developer for some time, and is not present in the surrounding code.

Like any pocket reference book, this one is not intended to serve as a full reference source or as a MySQL tutorial — of which O'Reilly offers several. Rather, it is best used for quickly answering questions concerning command syntax, operator precedence, function parameter order, or any of the other MySQL language details that are not listed automatically by programming editors, nor otherwise immediately obvious. Yet despite its small size, this book contains information that may be unknown to even some of the most experienced MySQL administrators and programmers. For instance, I had no idea that 2007-04-00 is considered a valid date. (I only wish that my taxes were due on that day.)

O'Reilly Media has a Web page on their site that provides some additional resources related to this book. These include links for reading the reviews offered by other readers, submitting your own review, and checking the errata for the book, of which there are 20, as of this writing — 19 of which have been confirmed.

There appear to be only two flaws in this book. It lacks a list of MySQL reserved words, which is odd for a reference book. Also, the text on every page is set too close to the binding, thus compelling the reader to force open the book more than should be necessary, just to comfortably read the inmost ends of the lines of text. This could be easily fixed in a subsequent edition, by moving the text outwards approximately half a centimeter, since the outer margins are much wider than necessary.

Speaking of editions, because this first edition of the book appeared in early 2003, it covers up to version 4.0 of MySQL. One can only hope that a second edition will be made available at some point in the future, so that it can be brought up to date with all of the new additions to MySQL 5, which are substantial. These include cursors, stored procedures, triggers, and views.

Nonetheless, this first edition would be of value to anyone using MySQL. In essence, MySQL Pocket Reference is neatly organized, extremely portable, and packs much valuable information into a succinct format.

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround."

You can purchase MySQL Pocket Reference from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Developers of Web sites, whether professional programmers or Web hobbyists, are oftentimes impressed by the more advanced functionality that can be achieved on a Web page using JavaScript. Yet these personal discoveries of JavaScript's power do not always motivate the developers to implement similar functionality on their own sites — partly because most of those custom-built JavaScript functions are cryptic, and make no attempt to show how the developer would customize the code for their own use. The majority of JavaScript books are of limited help in this regard, because they focus on the language details, illustrated only with code snippets. Many readers would benefit more from instruction via working examples, which is the approach used by The Book of JavaScript." Read the rest of Michael's review. The Book of JavaScript author David Thau pages 528 publisher No Starch Press rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1886411360 summary A guide for beginners to learn JavaScript via examples

The book was written by David Thau, a.k.a. "thau!," a veteran of the Internet and computer programming — especially JavaScript, which he has taught to countless other programmers, through this book, as well as numerous courses, conference presentations, and the tutorials he has written for Webmonkey.

Published by No Starch Press, the second edition of The Book of JavaScript appeared in December 2006. The publisher maintains a Web page for the book, where visitors can find an online copy of the book's table of contents, excerpts from reader reviews, links for purchasing the paper and electronic versions of the book, a sample chapter ("Chapter 2: Using Variables and Built-In Functions to Update Your Web Pages Automatically") as a PDF file, the errata discovered by the author and readers (several reported so far), and a link to the author's companion site.

Unlike some books' companion sites, this one is worth a visit, and not just to see a working example of the tip box described in chapter 8, which is used to show how to create an array. Thau's site has links for viewing, running, and downloading all of the sample code in the book's figures. In addition, the visitor can obtain copies of the book's JavaScript libraries, for doing cookies, form validation, and plug-in detection. There are links for viewing and downloading the three sample Web sites. However, in his AntWeb site, at least as of this writing, none of the images are showing up on his homepage. Another problem, of much less importance, is the strange behavior of the "Websites" and "Freeware" options on his "Chapters" drop-down list box. Choosing either one takes the visitor to his "Websites" page, but always displays "Freeware" in the drop-down. It is hard to imagine that this behavior is intentional.

The book's material spans 528 pages, most of which is found in 18 chapters, covering a variety of topics: an overview of JavaScript's capabilities, alternatives, and limitations, among other less technical issues; variables and built-in functions; browser detection and simple control flow; rollovers, events, images, and the "document" object; window manipulation and properties; creating your own JavaScript functions; Web forms; arrays and iteration; timing events; frames and image maps; handling form input and strings; cookies; dynamic HTML, CSS, and DOM; AJAX basics; XML; server-side AJAX; a sample application (an online to-do list); and debugging JavaScript and AJAX. The book also offers four appendices: answers to chapter assignments; online resources (tutorials, sample code, AJAX sites, and AJAX frameworks); a complete reference to JavaScript's objects and functions; the code for the book's two longest applications, namely, the Italian translator and the to-do list.

This second edition serves as a follow-up to the well-regarded first edition that came out seven years earlier. Both the book and the language itself have clearly withstood the test of time. There are several reasons for the popularity of that first edition: It taught the language and its capabilities largely through the use of complete JavaScript functions, each of which served as an illustrative example of not just the elements and rules of the language, but also straightforward ways of accomplishing common tasks in JavaScript. After all, looking at sample code is how most programmers prefer to learn or verify how a language works.

The book assumed no prior knowledge of JavaScript or any other computer language, on the part of the reader. This characteristic not only set it apart from the large number of other JavaScript titles published at that time, but it made the book more attractive to people new to programming in general and Web programming in particular. Such readers might also favor this book over others because of the author's approachable writing style, in which he fully explains topics in a leisurely manner, without the terseness seen in most programming language books. This is not to say that brevity in technical works is ever a mistake per se; the busy professional programmer wants to find answers as quickly as possible. But such brevity can quickly prove frustrating to non-techies, who lack the background for understanding terse explanations and for knowing where they can turn for clarification.

All of these laudable attributes of the first edition have been carried over into this latest edition. The primary change found in this second edition, is the coverage of AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript combined with XML). Even though the additional material substantially increases the length of the book, by 124 pages, the end result is still far from unwieldy — mostly due to several factors: The book's table of contents, along with the index, are detailed enough to make it relatively easy to find a particular topic in the book, assuming that it is included. The subsection listings in the table of contents, like good source code, make liberal use of whitespace for readability. In the text itself, coloring the headings and note numbers blue make them stand out.

Aside from the aforesaid problems with the book's companion site, there are a few other areas for improvement: It was noted earlier that the last appendix contains the sample code from chapters 15 and 17. The author states that these code listings were located in an appendix, rather than the chapters themselves, because they are too long. Actually, they comprise only a dozen pages, which would have been better located in the chapters where the reader expects to see them, and where they would be close at hand for referencing. The first listing is only two pages long, and definitely should be located in chapter 15. Even for the second listing, if the author is concerned about readers getting frustrated flipping through the 10 pages to find the continuation of the chapter's discussion, a simple note at the beginning of that code, as to what page the discussion is resumed, would be sufficient.

Some fundamental language elements of JavaScript are introduced fairly late in the book. For instance, it is noted above that an explanation as to how to create an array — an essential concept in just about any procedural language — is not found until the eighth chapter, on page 134. This is more than one third of the way into the book's 18 chapters. On the other hand, given that the author has chosen to present these language concepts, for the most part, only when needed and when describing the sample code, this later introduction of some key concepts might not prove much of a problem to most readers. However, this is a case in which the completeness and accuracy of the book's index, are even more critical than usual. In this regard, the book does not fail the reader, as the index appears to provide enough coverage.

The formatting of the code throughout the text is not entirely consistent, as evidenced by some open braces appearing on their own lines, thus wasting space, and in other cases on the same line as the preceding parenthesized expression, though separated by a pointlessly large number of spaces. Code level blocks are indented two or four spaces, seemingly at random. Continuation lines are indented exactly the same; they would be more clear if they had double the number of spaces as code level blocks. Of more importance to the reader attempting to figure out what code is serving what purpose, there are far too many large chunks of code lacking any comments, which are needed, since much of the code is not self-describing. In most of the functions, the only comment lines are those for hiding the JavaScript from outdated browsers — a practice that should have been phased out in this latest edition.

Any experienced programmer who needs a complete JavaScript reference book, or a book that covers all the language's elements in fine detail, would be best served by choosing a different book from this one. On the other hand, once they had secured such a book, they would likely find David Thau's contribution an enjoyable source of ideas on what can be done using JavaScript capabilities. For anyone who wishes to learn JavaScript in a practical and relaxed way, by reading clearly explained sample projects and their code, should be well pleased with The Book of JavaScript.

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase The Book of JavaScript from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Developers of Web sites, whether professional programmers or Web hobbyists, are oftentimes impressed by the more advanced functionality that can be achieved on a Web page using JavaScript. Yet these personal discoveries of JavaScript's power do not always motivate the developers to implement similar functionality on their own sites — partly because most of those custom-built JavaScript functions are cryptic, and make no attempt to show how the developer would customize the code for their own use. The majority of JavaScript books are of limited help in this regard, because they focus on the language details, illustrated only with code snippets. Many readers would benefit more from instruction via working examples, which is the approach used by The Book of JavaScript." Read the rest of Michael's review. The Book of JavaScript author David Thau pages 528 publisher No Starch Press rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1886411360 summary A guide for beginners to learn JavaScript via examples

The book was written by David Thau, a.k.a. "thau!," a veteran of the Internet and computer programming — especially JavaScript, which he has taught to countless other programmers, through this book, as well as numerous courses, conference presentations, and the tutorials he has written for Webmonkey.

Published by No Starch Press, the second edition of The Book of JavaScript appeared in December 2006. The publisher maintains a Web page for the book, where visitors can find an online copy of the book's table of contents, excerpts from reader reviews, links for purchasing the paper and electronic versions of the book, a sample chapter ("Chapter 2: Using Variables and Built-In Functions to Update Your Web Pages Automatically") as a PDF file, the errata discovered by the author and readers (several reported so far), and a link to the author's companion site.

Unlike some books' companion sites, this one is worth a visit, and not just to see a working example of the tip box described in chapter 8, which is used to show how to create an array. Thau's site has links for viewing, running, and downloading all of the sample code in the book's figures. In addition, the visitor can obtain copies of the book's JavaScript libraries, for doing cookies, form validation, and plug-in detection. There are links for viewing and downloading the three sample Web sites. However, in his AntWeb site, at least as of this writing, none of the images are showing up on his homepage. Another problem, of much less importance, is the strange behavior of the "Websites" and "Freeware" options on his "Chapters" drop-down list box. Choosing either one takes the visitor to his "Websites" page, but always displays "Freeware" in the drop-down. It is hard to imagine that this behavior is intentional.

The book's material spans 528 pages, most of which is found in 18 chapters, covering a variety of topics: an overview of JavaScript's capabilities, alternatives, and limitations, among other less technical issues; variables and built-in functions; browser detection and simple control flow; rollovers, events, images, and the "document" object; window manipulation and properties; creating your own JavaScript functions; Web forms; arrays and iteration; timing events; frames and image maps; handling form input and strings; cookies; dynamic HTML, CSS, and DOM; AJAX basics; XML; server-side AJAX; a sample application (an online to-do list); and debugging JavaScript and AJAX. The book also offers four appendices: answers to chapter assignments; online resources (tutorials, sample code, AJAX sites, and AJAX frameworks); a complete reference to JavaScript's objects and functions; the code for the book's two longest applications, namely, the Italian translator and the to-do list.

This second edition serves as a follow-up to the well-regarded first edition that came out seven years earlier. Both the book and the language itself have clearly withstood the test of time. There are several reasons for the popularity of that first edition: It taught the language and its capabilities largely through the use of complete JavaScript functions, each of which served as an illustrative example of not just the elements and rules of the language, but also straightforward ways of accomplishing common tasks in JavaScript. After all, looking at sample code is how most programmers prefer to learn or verify how a language works.

The book assumed no prior knowledge of JavaScript or any other computer language, on the part of the reader. This characteristic not only set it apart from the large number of other JavaScript titles published at that time, but it made the book more attractive to people new to programming in general and Web programming in particular. Such readers might also favor this book over others because of the author's approachable writing style, in which he fully explains topics in a leisurely manner, without the terseness seen in most programming language books. This is not to say that brevity in technical works is ever a mistake per se; the busy professional programmer wants to find answers as quickly as possible. But such brevity can quickly prove frustrating to non-techies, who lack the background for understanding terse explanations and for knowing where they can turn for clarification.

All of these laudable attributes of the first edition have been carried over into this latest edition. The primary change found in this second edition, is the coverage of AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript combined with XML). Even though the additional material substantially increases the length of the book, by 124 pages, the end result is still far from unwieldy — mostly due to several factors: The book's table of contents, along with the index, are detailed enough to make it relatively easy to find a particular topic in the book, assuming that it is included. The subsection listings in the table of contents, like good source code, make liberal use of whitespace for readability. In the text itself, coloring the headings and note numbers blue make them stand out.

Aside from the aforesaid problems with the book's companion site, there are a few other areas for improvement: It was noted earlier that the last appendix contains the sample code from chapters 15 and 17. The author states that these code listings were located in an appendix, rather than the chapters themselves, because they are too long. Actually, they comprise only a dozen pages, which would have been better located in the chapters where the reader expects to see them, and where they would be close at hand for referencing. The first listing is only two pages long, and definitely should be located in chapter 15. Even for the second listing, if the author is concerned about readers getting frustrated flipping through the 10 pages to find the continuation of the chapter's discussion, a simple note at the beginning of that code, as to what page the discussion is resumed, would be sufficient.

Some fundamental language elements of JavaScript are introduced fairly late in the book. For instance, it is noted above that an explanation as to how to create an array — an essential concept in just about any procedural language — is not found until the eighth chapter, on page 134. This is more than one third of the way into the book's 18 chapters. On the other hand, given that the author has chosen to present these language concepts, for the most part, only when needed and when describing the sample code, this later introduction of some key concepts might not prove much of a problem to most readers. However, this is a case in which the completeness and accuracy of the book's index, are even more critical than usual. In this regard, the book does not fail the reader, as the index appears to provide enough coverage.

The formatting of the code throughout the text is not entirely consistent, as evidenced by some open braces appearing on their own lines, thus wasting space, and in other cases on the same line as the preceding parenthesized expression, though separated by a pointlessly large number of spaces. Code level blocks are indented two or four spaces, seemingly at random. Continuation lines are indented exactly the same; they would be more clear if they had double the number of spaces as code level blocks. Of more importance to the reader attempting to figure out what code is serving what purpose, there are far too many large chunks of code lacking any comments, which are needed, since much of the code is not self-describing. In most of the functions, the only comment lines are those for hiding the JavaScript from outdated browsers — a practice that should have been phased out in this latest edition.

Any experienced programmer who needs a complete JavaScript reference book, or a book that covers all the language's elements in fine detail, would be best served by choosing a different book from this one. On the other hand, once they had secured such a book, they would likely find David Thau's contribution an enjoyable source of ideas on what can be done using JavaScript capabilities. For anyone who wishes to learn JavaScript in a practical and relaxed way, by reading clearly explained sample projects and their code, should be well pleased with The Book of JavaScript.

Michael J. Ross is a Web programmer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase The Book of JavaScript from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Of all the technical challenges faced by the typical experienced computer programmer, questions about syntax form a relatively small portion. This is especially true now that current coding editors and IDEs offer statement expansion and syntax checking. Rather, the most common type of technical challenge is understanding how to solve a specific data access or manipulation problem. Hence the growing popularity of programming "cookbooks," which are filled with "recipes," each comprising a concise statement of a focused problem, followed by a solution, with plenty of sample code to show how to implement it. For developers using the MySQL database system, the gold standard of such books is MySQL Cookbook, by Paul DuBois." Read below for the rest of Michael's review MySQL Cookbook author Paul DuBois pages 948 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059652708X summary A great book for developers using the MySQL database system

Published by O'Reilly Media, the second edition appeared in November 2006. This new edition has been updated for MySQL version 5.0. The publishers have a Web page devoted to the book, where the visitor can find both brief and full descriptions of the book, an online table of contents and index, a sample chapter (number 5, "Working with Strings") in PDF format, errata (none reported as of this writing), and a way to post your own review on the O'Reilly Web site. There are also links for purchasing the book, or reading an online version, in the Safari Bookshelf program.

The bulk of the book's material is divided among 20 chapters, covering a wide range of topics: Using the mysql Client Program; Writing MySQL-Based Programs; Selecting Data from Tables; Table Management; Working with Strings; Working with Dates and Times; Sorting Query Results; Generating Summaries; Obtaining and Using Metadata; Importing and Exporting Data; Generating and Using Sequences; Using Multiple Tables; Statistical Techniques; Handling Duplicates; Performing Transactions; Using Stored Procedures, Triggers, and Events; Introduction to MySQL on the Web; Incorporating Query Results into Web Pages; Processing Web Input with MySQL; Using MySQL-Based Web Session Management.

Most of these chapters contain a generous number of sections, each serving as a recipe for a specific problem within MySQL. Two of the chapters have only four such recipes, but most have a dozen or more, with a few of them boasting more than three dozen recipes. Each recipe begins with a brief problem statement, and usually an equally brief solution statement, followed by a much more lengthy discussion, which contains the actual explanation of the solution, the sample code, and the expected output of that code. Some of the sections conclude with a mention of related recipes that could also be consulted.

This book, like so many other programming cookbooks, is weakened by the practice of offering a "Solution" subsection that consists of only one or two sentences — so terse and high-level that it provides, for all practical purposes, no solution to the reader. The actual solution is found in the "Discussion" subsection, which follows. This practice makes no sense. Because both subsections address the problem solution, they should be combined into a single subsection, naturally labeled "Solution." It appears that the purpose of the current Solution statements is to provide a terse summary. If so, then it should be labeled as such, yet still included within the new Solution subsection.

Despite this illogical division of each solution into two subsections, the content of the problem solutions found in MySQL Cookbook should be quite valuable, for several reasons: Firstly, the author has chosen the sorts of problems, within each category, that the MySQL programmer would typically encounter. No doubt this is a consequence of Paul DuBois being the author of a number of MySQL books, as well as one of the earliest contributors to the online MySQL Reference Manual. Secondly, the solutions work, and have been demonstrated to do so. Thirdly, the writing style is straightforward, which is characteristic of O'Reilly's titles. Fourthly, all of the problem solutions contain sample code and its output, which not only demonstrate the validity of each solution (as noted in my second point), but also allows the reader to see how the solution works simply by reading the material, and not having to type in the sample code to get the output within their own development environment — assuming one is even at hand, when reading the book.

The bulk of MySQL-related code in use today, was created not just to be accessed within a database client program, such as mysql, but instead from interpreted programming languages — especially those used heavily on Web sites. This is one area where MySQL Cookbook really shines, because it contains a large amount of sample code in Perl, PHP, Python, Java, and even Ruby. That is not to say that every code sample in one language has corresponding samples for all of the other languages; that would undoubtedly make the book much longer than it currently is, and probably unwieldy. But in cases where all of the languages are capable of expressing brief solutions, then they are included.

Regardless of whether the reader chooses the print or online versions, there are roughly two ways to make use of this book. If a programmer wishes to significantly increase their knowledge of what MySQL can do for them, and also increase their comfort level with utilizing those capabilities, then they might elect to read the book from stem to stern. Given that this would involve reading over 900 pages, it would certainly take some time for the average developer, but arguably could be time well spent. At the other end of the spectrum, the reader might elect to peruse individual sections that look interesting — particularly if they are relevant to a current project. This approach is certainly doable, because each of the recipes is self-contained, without the cross-referencing seen in many non-recipe style books. Admittedly, there are some "See Also" sections, but they are relatively few in number, with largely optional information, and tend to simply enrich the book's presentation, rather than frustrating the reader by pointing to other areas of the book.

This new edition of MySQL Cookbook concludes with four appendices, and an index. The first appendix explains where to obtain the software for MySQL, the five API programming languages used in the book, and the Apache Web server. The second appendix shows how to execute programs written in those five interface languages, on the command line. The third appendix is a fairly substantial primer on Java Server Pages (JSP) and Tomcat, providing an overview of servlets and JSP, as well as how to install and set up a Tomcat server, the Tomcat directory structure, the basics of JSP pages, and more. The last appendix lists resources outside the book for MySQL and the five aforementioned languages.

Unlike far too many programming books on the market now, this book's index is generally quite thorough, which is essential for a work of this size (975 pages). The recipe titles in the table of contents, are detailed enough to make it possible for the reader to locate the appropriate recipe in the book for their particular problem — assuming the book addresses that problem — and are grouped by subject, making it easier to find related recipes, which oftentimes can provide insight into other problems that they do not address directly.

Despite the obvious effort that has gone into both editions of this book, there are still some areas for improvement, and most of them are related to the readability of the sample code. Admittedly, there are different schools of thought as to optimal coding style, including use of whitespace, the placement of braces, and other matters. This assessment can only be my own opinion, based upon years of reading other people's code. The sample code in MySQL Cookbook would be more readable if more whitespace were utilized to separate function and variable names from open and close parentheses. This is especially true for the SQL code and MySQL extensions, for which all of the keywords are in all uppercase. The code fragments and full programs written in the API languages — such as Perl and PHP — are more readable, though they sometimes suffer from nondescriptive variable names. One might argue that the aforesaid choices are needed to cut down on the space consumed by the code on the book's pages. But if that were true, then the author likely would not have wasted an entire line for each open brace. Last, and certainly not least for the programmer who would like to try out the author's sample code in their own environment, it is unfortunate and inexplicable as to why the sample code is not offered on the O'Reilly Web site for downloading.

All in all, MySQL Cookbook is a well-organized and neatly written work, which should be of tremendous value to any software developer trying to find proven solutions to common database programming problems.

Michael J. Ross is a Web consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase MySQL Cookbook from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Of all the technical challenges faced by the typical experienced computer programmer, questions about syntax form a relatively small portion. This is especially true now that current coding editors and IDEs offer statement expansion and syntax checking. Rather, the most common type of technical challenge is understanding how to solve a specific data access or manipulation problem. Hence the growing popularity of programming "cookbooks," which are filled with "recipes," each comprising a concise statement of a focused problem, followed by a solution, with plenty of sample code to show how to implement it. For developers using the MySQL database system, the gold standard of such books is MySQL Cookbook, by Paul DuBois." Read below for the rest of Michael's review MySQL Cookbook author Paul DuBois pages 948 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059652708X summary A great book for developers using the MySQL database system

Published by O'Reilly Media, the second edition appeared in November 2006. This new edition has been updated for MySQL version 5.0. The publishers have a Web page devoted to the book, where the visitor can find both brief and full descriptions of the book, an online table of contents and index, a sample chapter (number 5, "Working with Strings") in PDF format, errata (none reported as of this writing), and a way to post your own review on the O'Reilly Web site. There are also links for purchasing the book, or reading an online version, in the Safari Bookshelf program.

The bulk of the book's material is divided among 20 chapters, covering a wide range of topics: Using the mysql Client Program; Writing MySQL-Based Programs; Selecting Data from Tables; Table Management; Working with Strings; Working with Dates and Times; Sorting Query Results; Generating Summaries; Obtaining and Using Metadata; Importing and Exporting Data; Generating and Using Sequences; Using Multiple Tables; Statistical Techniques; Handling Duplicates; Performing Transactions; Using Stored Procedures, Triggers, and Events; Introduction to MySQL on the Web; Incorporating Query Results into Web Pages; Processing Web Input with MySQL; Using MySQL-Based Web Session Management.

Most of these chapters contain a generous number of sections, each serving as a recipe for a specific problem within MySQL. Two of the chapters have only four such recipes, but most have a dozen or more, with a few of them boasting more than three dozen recipes. Each recipe begins with a brief problem statement, and usually an equally brief solution statement, followed by a much more lengthy discussion, which contains the actual explanation of the solution, the sample code, and the expected output of that code. Some of the sections conclude with a mention of related recipes that could also be consulted.

This book, like so many other programming cookbooks, is weakened by the practice of offering a "Solution" subsection that consists of only one or two sentences — so terse and high-level that it provides, for all practical purposes, no solution to the reader. The actual solution is found in the "Discussion" subsection, which follows. This practice makes no sense. Because both subsections address the problem solution, they should be combined into a single subsection, naturally labeled "Solution." It appears that the purpose of the current Solution statements is to provide a terse summary. If so, then it should be labeled as such, yet still included within the new Solution subsection.

Despite this illogical division of each solution into two subsections, the content of the problem solutions found in MySQL Cookbook should be quite valuable, for several reasons: Firstly, the author has chosen the sorts of problems, within each category, that the MySQL programmer would typically encounter. No doubt this is a consequence of Paul DuBois being the author of a number of MySQL books, as well as one of the earliest contributors to the online MySQL Reference Manual. Secondly, the solutions work, and have been demonstrated to do so. Thirdly, the writing style is straightforward, which is characteristic of O'Reilly's titles. Fourthly, all of the problem solutions contain sample code and its output, which not only demonstrate the validity of each solution (as noted in my second point), but also allows the reader to see how the solution works simply by reading the material, and not having to type in the sample code to get the output within their own development environment — assuming one is even at hand, when reading the book.

The bulk of MySQL-related code in use today, was created not just to be accessed within a database client program, such as mysql, but instead from interpreted programming languages — especially those used heavily on Web sites. This is one area where MySQL Cookbook really shines, because it contains a large amount of sample code in Perl, PHP, Python, Java, and even Ruby. That is not to say that every code sample in one language has corresponding samples for all of the other languages; that would undoubtedly make the book much longer than it currently is, and probably unwieldy. But in cases where all of the languages are capable of expressing brief solutions, then they are included.

Regardless of whether the reader chooses the print or online versions, there are roughly two ways to make use of this book. If a programmer wishes to significantly increase their knowledge of what MySQL can do for them, and also increase their comfort level with utilizing those capabilities, then they might elect to read the book from stem to stern. Given that this would involve reading over 900 pages, it would certainly take some time for the average developer, but arguably could be time well spent. At the other end of the spectrum, the reader might elect to peruse individual sections that look interesting — particularly if they are relevant to a current project. This approach is certainly doable, because each of the recipes is self-contained, without the cross-referencing seen in many non-recipe style books. Admittedly, there are some "See Also" sections, but they are relatively few in number, with largely optional information, and tend to simply enrich the book's presentation, rather than frustrating the reader by pointing to other areas of the book.

This new edition of MySQL Cookbook concludes with four appendices, and an index. The first appendix explains where to obtain the software for MySQL, the five API programming languages used in the book, and the Apache Web server. The second appendix shows how to execute programs written in those five interface languages, on the command line. The third appendix is a fairly substantial primer on Java Server Pages (JSP) and Tomcat, providing an overview of servlets and JSP, as well as how to install and set up a Tomcat server, the Tomcat directory structure, the basics of JSP pages, and more. The last appendix lists resources outside the book for MySQL and the five aforementioned languages.

Unlike far too many programming books on the market now, this book's index is generally quite thorough, which is essential for a work of this size (975 pages). The recipe titles in the table of contents, are detailed enough to make it possible for the reader to locate the appropriate recipe in the book for their particular problem — assuming the book addresses that problem — and are grouped by subject, making it easier to find related recipes, which oftentimes can provide insight into other problems that they do not address directly.

Despite the obvious effort that has gone into both editions of this book, there are still some areas for improvement, and most of them are related to the readability of the sample code. Admittedly, there are different schools of thought as to optimal coding style, including use of whitespace, the placement of braces, and other matters. This assessment can only be my own opinion, based upon years of reading other people's code. The sample code in MySQL Cookbook would be more readable if more whitespace were utilized to separate function and variable names from open and close parentheses. This is especially true for the SQL code and MySQL extensions, for which all of the keywords are in all uppercase. The code fragments and full programs written in the API languages — such as Perl and PHP — are more readable, though they sometimes suffer from nondescriptive variable names. One might argue that the aforesaid choices are needed to cut down on the space consumed by the code on the book's pages. But if that were true, then the author likely would not have wasted an entire line for each open brace. Last, and certainly not least for the programmer who would like to try out the author's sample code in their own environment, it is unfortunate and inexplicable as to why the sample code is not offered on the O'Reilly Web site for downloading.

All in all, MySQL Cookbook is a well-organized and neatly written work, which should be of tremendous value to any software developer trying to find proven solutions to common database programming problems.

Michael J. Ross is a Web consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase MySQL Cookbook from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Computer programming books come in all varieties, but there are at least four general categories: introductory texts, which typically have the lowest content per page; language references, which have become increasingly supplanted by online sources; "advanced" treatments, which are often a mishmash of errata-riddled articles; and "how-to" books, usually at the intermediate level, and sometimes presented as "cookbooks." It is that last category that has been growing in popularity, and for good reason. When an experienced software developer needs assistance, it is rarely for language syntax, but instead a desire to see how someone else solved a specific problem. For solutions using the PHP language, one source of information is PHP 5 in Practice." Read the rest of Michael's review. PHP 5 in Practice author Elliott White III and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer pages 456 publisher Sams Publishing rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0672328887 summary One of the most meaty, immediately useful, and fluff-free PHP books available

The book was authored by Elliott White III and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer, and put out in July 2006 by Sams Publishing (an imprint of Pearson Education). Given today's standards of hefty technical books, this particular one is relatively light, weighing in at 456 pages, which are organized into an introduction, numerous chapters, and three appendices.

Its introduction is more interesting than that of most similar books, whose introductions usually consist of formatting conventions and explanations as to why the book was written — all such content providing little to no value to the impatient programmer facing a deadline, and invariably ignored (the content, that is, not the deadline).

White and Eisenhamer took a refreshingly different tack, and chose instead to explain their use of coding standards, comments and whitespace, braces and parentheses, PHP short tags, PHP mode, and other language considerations that are more useful than the typical rundown of somewhat childish icons used in other texts, such as light bulbs and red warning signs.

Switching to the other end of the book, we find three appendices. The first one briefly discusses issues one might face in migrating from PHP version 4 to 5. The second introduces the Standard PHP Library (SPL), and the objects related to its primary design pattern, the Iterator. The third appendix discusses what composes the bulk of output from my PHP programs: error messages. Seriously, this appendix is worth reading, if only for the suggestions as to what to look for when you encounter some of the most common PHP error messages.

The bulk of the book's material is divided into 20 chapters, which are themselves divided into two parts: PHP internals, and applications. The internals are: strings, numbers, time and date, variables, arrays, functions, classes and objects, and files and directories. Starting off with a discussion of strings, might seem odd to the neophyte programmer, but to the veteran who has had to learn several languages during their career, the choice makes a lot of sense. There must be countless developers out there who, being fluent in the C language and object-oriented concepts, jumped into writing their first C++ program, and had to hit the books for the first time when they wanted to do some non-array-based string handling.

The book's second part covers some of the most common applications in PHP programming: Web page creation (using XHTML and CSS), Web form handling, data validation and standardization, sessions and user tracking, Web services and other protocols, relational databases and other data storage methods, e-mail, XML, images, error reporting and debugging, and user authentication and encryption. That last chapter, in the next edition, should be relocated so that it precedes or follows the chapter on sessions and user tracking.

Many of the chapters begin with a "Quick Hits" section, which briefly summarizes how to perform many of the most common and essential tasks related to that chapter's topic. For instance, in the chapter covering the use of variables, this first section explains how to: check if a variable has no value or if it is empty (not synonymous in PHP), undefine a variable, cast it to a certain data type, and do the same thing for a value. There is one minor erratum that should be noted: On page 71, in the first "Quick Hit," it reads "a variable has bee. given a value." ("been"'s "n" ended too soon.)

Each section within the chapter briefly explains the problem domain, and then presents sample code to solve the given problem. The code itself is fairly well commented, and the variable names are adequately descriptive (unlike in some programming books, whose coding standards border on the criminal).

All in all, the book offers a lot of worthwhile solutions to a wide range of problems, and does so in a straightforward manner. It is for this reason that it is not evident as to why this particular PHP title has received so little notice. For instance, on Amazon.com, it has received only one reader review, as of this writing, and does not even make it into the top quarter million books ranked in sales by Amazon.com. It is a pity, because the book deserves much more attention.

Even though this book is to be recommended, and is packed with code and text that are well worth studying, it has one unmistakable weakness for which this writer can think of no adequate justification. The book contains almost no illustrations, even when they are clearly called for — in fact, especially in those cases. For instance, the section that shows how to generate a calendar, does not show a calendar! The code is present, but the sample output — which is what the poor reader would appreciate, to see the results of the code — is missing.

Granted, an absence of figures and screenshots might be understandable for the first part of the book, which covers the PHP language itself. But the second part, covering applications, has far too many unillustrated PHP scripts. These include sections focusing on drop-down menus, progress bars, and graphical charts Web forms. In the last chapter, there is a section with code that generates captchas, but the reader is not shown what they look like. The entire 18th chapter is devoted to images, but contains not a single one! I cannot imagine why the authors and/or publisher chose to leave out these essential graphics. Was it to save money? Whatever the reason, it was a significant mistake, and one that should be corrected in the next edition.

Readers who agree with this assessment, or who have other thoughts concerning this otherwise excellent book, can leave feedback via the book's Web page on the Web site for Sams Publishing. This page offers details on the book, a description and table of contents, links for requesting instructor or review copies, and a tool for searching the book's contents within the Safari online technical library. The book's introduction states that the Web site hosts all of the code listings, as well as a list of errata. Yet, I was unable to find either one. (Sadly, the Pearson Education sites are still some of the least usable in the technical book publishing world.) Much better results were obtained on Eli White's site.

Despite an inexcusable and almost complete lack of needed illustrations, PHP 5 in Practice is possibly one of the most meaty, immediately useful, and fluff-free PHP books available. No serious PHP programmer should be without it.

Michael J. Ross is a Web consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase PHP 5 in Practice from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Computer programming books come in all varieties, but there are at least four general categories: introductory texts, which typically have the lowest content per page; language references, which have become increasingly supplanted by online sources; "advanced" treatments, which are often a mishmash of errata-riddled articles; and "how-to" books, usually at the intermediate level, and sometimes presented as "cookbooks." It is that last category that has been growing in popularity, and for good reason. When an experienced software developer needs assistance, it is rarely for language syntax, but instead a desire to see how someone else solved a specific problem. For solutions using the PHP language, one source of information is PHP 5 in Practice." Read the rest of Michael's review. PHP 5 in Practice author Elliott White III and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer pages 456 publisher Sams Publishing rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0672328887 summary One of the most meaty, immediately useful, and fluff-free PHP books available

The book was authored by Elliott White III and Jonathan D. Eisenhamer, and put out in July 2006 by Sams Publishing (an imprint of Pearson Education). Given today's standards of hefty technical books, this particular one is relatively light, weighing in at 456 pages, which are organized into an introduction, numerous chapters, and three appendices.

Its introduction is more interesting than that of most similar books, whose introductions usually consist of formatting conventions and explanations as to why the book was written — all such content providing little to no value to the impatient programmer facing a deadline, and invariably ignored (the content, that is, not the deadline).

White and Eisenhamer took a refreshingly different tack, and chose instead to explain their use of coding standards, comments and whitespace, braces and parentheses, PHP short tags, PHP mode, and other language considerations that are more useful than the typical rundown of somewhat childish icons used in other texts, such as light bulbs and red warning signs.

Switching to the other end of the book, we find three appendices. The first one briefly discusses issues one might face in migrating from PHP version 4 to 5. The second introduces the Standard PHP Library (SPL), and the objects related to its primary design pattern, the Iterator. The third appendix discusses what composes the bulk of output from my PHP programs: error messages. Seriously, this appendix is worth reading, if only for the suggestions as to what to look for when you encounter some of the most common PHP error messages.

The bulk of the book's material is divided into 20 chapters, which are themselves divided into two parts: PHP internals, and applications. The internals are: strings, numbers, time and date, variables, arrays, functions, classes and objects, and files and directories. Starting off with a discussion of strings, might seem odd to the neophyte programmer, but to the veteran who has had to learn several languages during their career, the choice makes a lot of sense. There must be countless developers out there who, being fluent in the C language and object-oriented concepts, jumped into writing their first C++ program, and had to hit the books for the first time when they wanted to do some non-array-based string handling.

The book's second part covers some of the most common applications in PHP programming: Web page creation (using XHTML and CSS), Web form handling, data validation and standardization, sessions and user tracking, Web services and other protocols, relational databases and other data storage methods, e-mail, XML, images, error reporting and debugging, and user authentication and encryption. That last chapter, in the next edition, should be relocated so that it precedes or follows the chapter on sessions and user tracking.

Many of the chapters begin with a "Quick Hits" section, which briefly summarizes how to perform many of the most common and essential tasks related to that chapter's topic. For instance, in the chapter covering the use of variables, this first section explains how to: check if a variable has no value or if it is empty (not synonymous in PHP), undefine a variable, cast it to a certain data type, and do the same thing for a value. There is one minor erratum that should be noted: On page 71, in the first "Quick Hit," it reads "a variable has bee. given a value." ("been"'s "n" ended too soon.)

Each section within the chapter briefly explains the problem domain, and then presents sample code to solve the given problem. The code itself is fairly well commented, and the variable names are adequately descriptive (unlike in some programming books, whose coding standards border on the criminal).

All in all, the book offers a lot of worthwhile solutions to a wide range of problems, and does so in a straightforward manner. It is for this reason that it is not evident as to why this particular PHP title has received so little notice. For instance, on Amazon.com, it has received only one reader review, as of this writing, and does not even make it into the top quarter million books ranked in sales by Amazon.com. It is a pity, because the book deserves much more attention.

Even though this book is to be recommended, and is packed with code and text that are well worth studying, it has one unmistakable weakness for which this writer can think of no adequate justification. The book contains almost no illustrations, even when they are clearly called for — in fact, especially in those cases. For instance, the section that shows how to generate a calendar, does not show a calendar! The code is present, but the sample output — which is what the poor reader would appreciate, to see the results of the code — is missing.

Granted, an absence of figures and screenshots might be understandable for the first part of the book, which covers the PHP language itself. But the second part, covering applications, has far too many unillustrated PHP scripts. These include sections focusing on drop-down menus, progress bars, and graphical charts Web forms. In the last chapter, there is a section with code that generates captchas, but the reader is not shown what they look like. The entire 18th chapter is devoted to images, but contains not a single one! I cannot imagine why the authors and/or publisher chose to leave out these essential graphics. Was it to save money? Whatever the reason, it was a significant mistake, and one that should be corrected in the next edition.

Readers who agree with this assessment, or who have other thoughts concerning this otherwise excellent book, can leave feedback via the book's Web page on the Web site for Sams Publishing. This page offers details on the book, a description and table of contents, links for requesting instructor or review copies, and a tool for searching the book's contents within the Safari online technical library. The book's introduction states that the Web site hosts all of the code listings, as well as a list of errata. Yet, I was unable to find either one. (Sadly, the Pearson Education sites are still some of the least usable in the technical book publishing world.) Much better results were obtained on Eli White's site.

Despite an inexcusable and almost complete lack of needed illustrations, PHP 5 in Practice is possibly one of the most meaty, immediately useful, and fluff-free PHP books available. No serious PHP programmer should be without it.

Michael J. Ross is a Web consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase PHP 5 in Practice from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Every Web developer knows that Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) makes it possible to separate the contents of Web pages from the styling of the elements on those pages. This in turn confers tremendous advantages, such as allowing site-wide changes of appearance to be made just once, in a single stylesheet file, rather than in all of the pages containing the affected elements. The syntax and proper usage of CSS is not as simple as implied by many HTML/CSS books, most of which fail to provide enough detail as to how CSS is applied to page elements. Web developers relying upon these books soon find themselves hitting those limits, and becoming frustrated when trying to debug Web pages. CSS: The Definitive Guide, authored by CSS expert Eric A. Meyer, aims to fill that gap." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. CSS: The Definitive Guide author Eric A. Meyer pages 536 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596527330 summary A comprehensive CSS reference guide.

Published by O'Reilly Media in November 2006, this title is now in its third edition. The first edition appeared in May 2000, and the second in January 2004 — with each one establishing the book as an immediate favorite among hard-core Web programmers. Each revision brought it up to date with the evolution of CSS as a standard, its support among the most popular Web browsers, and its usage within the Web development community. This latest edition covers CSS2 and CSS2.1, but does not include the CSS3 modules, including those that have reached Candidate Recommendation status, because their implementation is largely incomplete among most of the browsers.

Web veteran Eric Meyer presents the book's material in a methodical manner, starting with an overview of CSS's purpose and advantages, and quickly moving into the details of the technology: selectors, structure, inheritance, values, units, fonts, text properties, visual formatting, padding, borders, margins, colors, backgrounds, floating, positioning, tables, lists, and generated content (e.g., bullets of unordered lists). The last two chapters address user interface styles (system fonts and colors, cursors, and outlines) and non-screen media (such as paged and aural content). The book's 536 pages are organized into a total of 14 chapters and three appendices. The first appendix is a complete CSS property reference, spanning more than 40 pages, with visual, page, and aural properties grouped separately. For each property, Meyer explains its purpose, its valid values, the initial value, what elements it applies to, whether it is inherited, its computed value, and additional notes (if any). The second appendix is a reference for the selectors, pseudo classes, and pseudo elements. The third and final appendix is much shorter than the first two, but no less interesting, as it discusses a sample HTML 4 stylesheet, which is presented in the CSS2.1 specification as the recommended style sheet for developers to use.

As with all of their other titles, O'Reilly Media offers a Web page devoted to this book, where visitors will find links to online versions of the book cover, table of contents, index, registration form, reader reviews, and errata (of which there are none, as of this writing). In addition, the page has offers to receive a volume discount, and to read the book online as part of O'Reilly's Safari service.

Anyone who is considering purchasing this book might initially be concerned by the dearth of feedback on the Web sites of the publisher and the major online booksellers — in the form of few reader comments, and no reported errata. The prospective reader may wrongly conclude that this indicates a lack of interest in the book, and thus it must be unpopular — probably for good reason. But just the opposite is true, as demonstrated by the book's sales rank on Amazon.com alone: #4631, as of this writing. Unlike far too many of the other HTML/CSS books available, this one does not engender scathing reviews by customers angry with the books' shoddy writing and sloppy mistakes. Rather, Meyer's contribution is the type of solid reference book that the discerning Web developer will quietly place on their desk or bookshelf, within easy and frequent reach — possibly displacing a dog-eared first or second edition of the same title. Furthermore, the absence of errata should suggest that most if not all kinks have been worked out of the book, and not that the book is failing to receive careful readings.

CSS: The Definitive Guide benefits not just from its multiple revisions, but also from Eric Meyer's clear and complete writing style. Unlike his more advanced books, this one is far more approachable, making it possible for the reader to easily jump into the midst of any topic and quickly pick up the thread — as is essential for any technical reference work. The theoretical discussions and the sample code demonstrate his abundant experience in using CSS in the real world, discovering or verifying its idiosyncrasies, and pushing it to its limits. Most of the critical visual and positioning topics are well illustrated with diagrams and sample output, few of which are weakened by the lack of color in the grayscale figures. Last and certainly not least, readers should be pleased that the book's material has been updated for Internet Explorer 7, which promises to fix many inexcusable problems in earlier versions of the browser.

Rarely does one come across a programming book that has no significant flaws, and will likely become a favorite resource for developers everywhere. CSS: The Definitive Guide is a comprehensive, well-written, and welcome addition to the library of any Web developer who wishes to understand and utilize CSS better.

Michael J. Ross is a Web consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase CSS: The Definitive Guide from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Every Web developer knows that Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) makes it possible to separate the contents of Web pages from the styling of the elements on those pages. This in turn confers tremendous advantages, such as allowing site-wide changes of appearance to be made just once, in a single stylesheet file, rather than in all of the pages containing the affected elements. The syntax and proper usage of CSS is not as simple as implied by many HTML/CSS books, most of which fail to provide enough detail as to how CSS is applied to page elements. Web developers relying upon these books soon find themselves hitting those limits, and becoming frustrated when trying to debug Web pages. CSS: The Definitive Guide, authored by CSS expert Eric A. Meyer, aims to fill that gap." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. CSS: The Definitive Guide author Eric A. Meyer pages 536 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596527330 summary A comprehensive CSS reference guide.

Published by O'Reilly Media in November 2006, this title is now in its third edition. The first edition appeared in May 2000, and the second in January 2004 — with each one establishing the book as an immediate favorite among hard-core Web programmers. Each revision brought it up to date with the evolution of CSS as a standard, its support among the most popular Web browsers, and its usage within the Web development community. This latest edition covers CSS2 and CSS2.1, but does not include the CSS3 modules, including those that have reached Candidate Recommendation status, because their implementation is largely incomplete among most of the browsers.

Web veteran Eric Meyer presents the book's material in a methodical manner, starting with an overview of CSS's purpose and advantages, and quickly moving into the details of the technology: selectors, structure, inheritance, values, units, fonts, text properties, visual formatting, padding, borders, margins, colors, backgrounds, floating, positioning, tables, lists, and generated content (e.g., bullets of unordered lists). The last two chapters address user interface styles (system fonts and colors, cursors, and outlines) and non-screen media (such as paged and aural content). The book's 536 pages are organized into a total of 14 chapters and three appendices. The first appendix is a complete CSS property reference, spanning more than 40 pages, with visual, page, and aural properties grouped separately. For each property, Meyer explains its purpose, its valid values, the initial value, what elements it applies to, whether it is inherited, its computed value, and additional notes (if any). The second appendix is a reference for the selectors, pseudo classes, and pseudo elements. The third and final appendix is much shorter than the first two, but no less interesting, as it discusses a sample HTML 4 stylesheet, which is presented in the CSS2.1 specification as the recommended style sheet for developers to use.

As with all of their other titles, O'Reilly Media offers a Web page devoted to this book, where visitors will find links to online versions of the book cover, table of contents, index, registration form, reader reviews, and errata (of which there are none, as of this writing). In addition, the page has offers to receive a volume discount, and to read the book online as part of O'Reilly's Safari service.

Anyone who is considering purchasing this book might initially be concerned by the dearth of feedback on the Web sites of the publisher and the major online booksellers — in the form of few reader comments, and no reported errata. The prospective reader may wrongly conclude that this indicates a lack of interest in the book, and thus it must be unpopular — probably for good reason. But just the opposite is true, as demonstrated by the book's sales rank on Amazon.com alone: #4631, as of this writing. Unlike far too many of the other HTML/CSS books available, this one does not engender scathing reviews by customers angry with the books' shoddy writing and sloppy mistakes. Rather, Meyer's contribution is the type of solid reference book that the discerning Web developer will quietly place on their desk or bookshelf, within easy and frequent reach — possibly displacing a dog-eared first or second edition of the same title. Furthermore, the absence of errata should suggest that most if not all kinks have been worked out of the book, and not that the book is failing to receive careful readings.

CSS: The Definitive Guide benefits not just from its multiple revisions, but also from Eric Meyer's clear and complete writing style. Unlike his more advanced books, this one is far more approachable, making it possible for the reader to easily jump into the midst of any topic and quickly pick up the thread — as is essential for any technical reference work. The theoretical discussions and the sample code demonstrate his abundant experience in using CSS in the real world, discovering or verifying its idiosyncrasies, and pushing it to its limits. Most of the critical visual and positioning topics are well illustrated with diagrams and sample output, few of which are weakened by the lack of color in the grayscale figures. Last and certainly not least, readers should be pleased that the book's material has been updated for Internet Explorer 7, which promises to fix many inexcusable problems in earlier versions of the browser.

Rarely does one come across a programming book that has no significant flaws, and will likely become a favorite resource for developers everywhere. CSS: The Definitive Guide is a comprehensive, well-written, and welcome addition to the library of any Web developer who wishes to understand and utilize CSS better.

Michael J. Ross is a Web consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase CSS: The Definitive Guide from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Anyone involved with the coding of Web sites likely knows that Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) should be used for styling the content of their sites' pages — setting text sizes and fonts, setting background colors, sizing margins, positioning images, and more. CSS allows the Web developer to specify the visual appearance of the site, separately from the HTML, and thus to be able to make changes in the future within a single stylesheet, rather than hunting through the HTML and modifying every occurrence of each affected element. The benefits of CSS are many, but so too can be the frustrations when the developer turns for help to CSS books heavy on theory and light on practical explanations. For every Web site 'cook' feeling the heat in their cyber kitchen, there is an ingredient that can help: CSS Cookbook." Read the rest of Michael's review, CSS Cookbook author Christopher Schmitt pages 538 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596005768 summary Practical solutions to common CSS challenges

Written by award-winning Web designer Christopher Schmitt, this book is published by O'Reilly Media, under the ISBN 0596005768, and is in its second edition, having been updated for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 1.5. The book has its own Web page on the publisher's site, offering the book's table of contents, the index, Appendix D ("Styling of Form Elements," in PDF format), and links for reading and submitting book reviews/comments, as well as reading and reporting errata (there are none, as of this writing).

The book's 538 pages are organized into 12 chapters, which cover the major areas of interest to the Web developer: CSS overview, typography, images, page elements, lists, links and navigation, forms, tables, page layouts, printable pages, hacks and workarounds, and design considerations. Appendix A briefly describes some of the better online CSS resources, including tutorials, design guides, discussion groups, technical references, and tools, such as the W3C validators. The next two appendices cover CSS 2.1 properties, proprietary extensions, selectors, pseudo-classes, and pseudo-elements.

The fourth and last appendix, on the styling of form elements, details how 20 CSS properties affect eight form elements, as displayed within Windows Internet Explorer 5, 5.5, 6, and 7; Mac Safari 2; Windows and Mac Firefox 1.5; Windows and Mac Netscape Navigator 7.2; and Opera 8.5. The form elements considered are: checkboxes, file upload elements, radio buttons, text fields, multiple options, select elements, submit buttons, and text areas. The author does not explain exactly what page elements are meant by "File Upload" (at the beginning of the appendix) or "File Input" (the actual section title). Presumably he is referring to the file display field and Browse button, and not the file locator dialog box, which is determined by the browser and operating system. More importantly, he does not explain what is meant by "multiple options" nor "select elements," and neither term is listed in the book's index. Future editions of the book would benefit by beginning every element's section with an example, showing the code as well as the element's appearance on a Web page. Despite this obvious omission, this appendix could prove a godsend to anyone concerned with how these various types of elements are affected by CSS within these eight major browser versions. As noted earlier, the appendix can be downloaded for free.

HTML/CSS books generally fall into two broad categories: Introductory books are usually sufficient for beginners, because they cover the basics. But they are typically useless to the veteran developer who is struggling to understand why Internet Explorer is mucking up yet another page that looks fine in Firefox, Opera, and Safari — and how to work around the problem. Advanced books assume that the reader already has a relatively solid understanding of the technologies, and uses that basis as a foundation from which to explore sophisticated design techniques. But even those books prove inadequate for the developer who is simply wondering how to best use pure CSS to do such presumably straightforward tasks as positioning some images horizontally, with small captions centered underneath each one. In fact, many of those advanced books seem to have little interest in clearly explaining how the reader can do what the author has done, largely because the sample projects and their source listings are too long and involved, thus burying the critical HTML and CSS in pages of code.

There is clearly a great need for one or more HTML/CSS books aimed at the developer who already understands the basics, and wants to apply that knowledge for building robust Web pages, all while following defensible best practices. The O'Reilly "Cookbook" titles are intended to fill that gap, by presenting the material in the form of recipes, each comprising a brief statement of the problem to be solved, a summary of the solution, and a discussion of the solution's details. Oftentimes additional resources are referenced, in a "Sea Also" subsection, which might have one or more links to relevant Web sites. The discussion subsections usually have sample code, in addition to a figure showing the code's output.

Possibly the greatest benefits of the cookbook format, is that it forces the author to clearly state the purpose of each section, and then to get right to the point of how to achieve that purpose. This prevents the meandering seen in many of the advanced design books, which is the main reason why they can be so frustrating for the developer who wants to quickly find out how to perform a specific task on a Web page, such as the image positioning task mentioned earlier. Possibly the biggest downside to the cookbook format is that it results in contrived problem statements, such as the very first one in CSS Cookbook: "Problem — You want to use CSS in your web pages." Is that truly a problem? Is it not much more a goal or task, than some sort of problematic difficulty?

Yet aside from any misleading subsection titling, the recipe format does cause any (largely) expository material in a technical book to get chopped up into somewhat artificial pieces. It is more noticeable in the first chapter of this particular book, titled "General," in which Schmitt explains the fundamentals of CSS: selectors, classes and IDs, properties, the box model, style sheets, comments, shorthand properties, floating images, absolute and relative positioning, and using CSS with the more common page development tools. As the author gets into more advanced topics — for which individual subsections can stand more on their own — the recipe format works fine. One advantage is that the section titles end up being detailed enough that the reader can, in most cases, quickly find the relevant section to address their needs.

Overall, this book is a fine addition to O'Reilly's growing list of programming titles. However, like all books, it is not perfect. It does not cover all of the more common tasks that the average Web programmer might want to accomplish — but it does hit the bulk of them. Sadly, all of the figures in the book are in black and white, including those displaying colors on the sample Web pages. Shades of gray are just not optimal. Fortunately, in most cases, the crux of the technique is discernible. In addition, the sample code has too many instances where layout is achieved using tables, and not pure CSS. Lastly, the book's index — similar to that of so many other technical books nowadays — could certainly use some beefing up. After all, if the reader cannot find the desired material using the table of contents, the index is their last hope, before resorting to time-wasting page flipping.

In terms of HTML and CSS information, the topics are well chosen, and the coverage of browser hacks and workarounds is excellent. Also, the most critical parts of the code are helpfully bolded. For those readers completely unfamiliar with JavaScript, it is used only where unavoidable. The book's material is neatly presented, and the author's writing style is straightforward and approachable.

On balance, CSS Cookbook is to be recommended to any developer looking for a CSS guide that is concise, clearly written, well-illustrated, and addresses the most common challenges in building Web pages.

Michael J. Ross is a computer consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase CSS Cookbook from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Anyone involved with the coding of Web sites likely knows that Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) should be used for styling the content of their sites' pages — setting text sizes and fonts, setting background colors, sizing margins, positioning images, and more. CSS allows the Web developer to specify the visual appearance of the site, separately from the HTML, and thus to be able to make changes in the future within a single stylesheet, rather than hunting through the HTML and modifying every occurrence of each affected element. The benefits of CSS are many, but so too can be the frustrations when the developer turns for help to CSS books heavy on theory and light on practical explanations. For every Web site 'cook' feeling the heat in their cyber kitchen, there is an ingredient that can help: CSS Cookbook." Read the rest of Michael's review, CSS Cookbook author Christopher Schmitt pages 538 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596005768 summary Practical solutions to common CSS challenges

Written by award-winning Web designer Christopher Schmitt, this book is published by O'Reilly Media, under the ISBN 0596005768, and is in its second edition, having been updated for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 1.5. The book has its own Web page on the publisher's site, offering the book's table of contents, the index, Appendix D ("Styling of Form Elements," in PDF format), and links for reading and submitting book reviews/comments, as well as reading and reporting errata (there are none, as of this writing).

The book's 538 pages are organized into 12 chapters, which cover the major areas of interest to the Web developer: CSS overview, typography, images, page elements, lists, links and navigation, forms, tables, page layouts, printable pages, hacks and workarounds, and design considerations. Appendix A briefly describes some of the better online CSS resources, including tutorials, design guides, discussion groups, technical references, and tools, such as the W3C validators. The next two appendices cover CSS 2.1 properties, proprietary extensions, selectors, pseudo-classes, and pseudo-elements.

The fourth and last appendix, on the styling of form elements, details how 20 CSS properties affect eight form elements, as displayed within Windows Internet Explorer 5, 5.5, 6, and 7; Mac Safari 2; Windows and Mac Firefox 1.5; Windows and Mac Netscape Navigator 7.2; and Opera 8.5. The form elements considered are: checkboxes, file upload elements, radio buttons, text fields, multiple options, select elements, submit buttons, and text areas. The author does not explain exactly what page elements are meant by "File Upload" (at the beginning of the appendix) or "File Input" (the actual section title). Presumably he is referring to the file display field and Browse button, and not the file locator dialog box, which is determined by the browser and operating system. More importantly, he does not explain what is meant by "multiple options" nor "select elements," and neither term is listed in the book's index. Future editions of the book would benefit by beginning every element's section with an example, showing the code as well as the element's appearance on a Web page. Despite this obvious omission, this appendix could prove a godsend to anyone concerned with how these various types of elements are affected by CSS within these eight major browser versions. As noted earlier, the appendix can be downloaded for free.

HTML/CSS books generally fall into two broad categories: Introductory books are usually sufficient for beginners, because they cover the basics. But they are typically useless to the veteran developer who is struggling to understand why Internet Explorer is mucking up yet another page that looks fine in Firefox, Opera, and Safari — and how to work around the problem. Advanced books assume that the reader already has a relatively solid understanding of the technologies, and uses that basis as a foundation from which to explore sophisticated design techniques. But even those books prove inadequate for the developer who is simply wondering how to best use pure CSS to do such presumably straightforward tasks as positioning some images horizontally, with small captions centered underneath each one. In fact, many of those advanced books seem to have little interest in clearly explaining how the reader can do what the author has done, largely because the sample projects and their source listings are too long and involved, thus burying the critical HTML and CSS in pages of code.

There is clearly a great need for one or more HTML/CSS books aimed at the developer who already understands the basics, and wants to apply that knowledge for building robust Web pages, all while following defensible best practices. The O'Reilly "Cookbook" titles are intended to fill that gap, by presenting the material in the form of recipes, each comprising a brief statement of the problem to be solved, a summary of the solution, and a discussion of the solution's details. Oftentimes additional resources are referenced, in a "Sea Also" subsection, which might have one or more links to relevant Web sites. The discussion subsections usually have sample code, in addition to a figure showing the code's output.

Possibly the greatest benefits of the cookbook format, is that it forces the author to clearly state the purpose of each section, and then to get right to the point of how to achieve that purpose. This prevents the meandering seen in many of the advanced design books, which is the main reason why they can be so frustrating for the developer who wants to quickly find out how to perform a specific task on a Web page, such as the image positioning task mentioned earlier. Possibly the biggest downside to the cookbook format is that it results in contrived problem statements, such as the very first one in CSS Cookbook: "Problem — You want to use CSS in your web pages." Is that truly a problem? Is it not much more a goal or task, than some sort of problematic difficulty?

Yet aside from any misleading subsection titling, the recipe format does cause any (largely) expository material in a technical book to get chopped up into somewhat artificial pieces. It is more noticeable in the first chapter of this particular book, titled "General," in which Schmitt explains the fundamentals of CSS: selectors, classes and IDs, properties, the box model, style sheets, comments, shorthand properties, floating images, absolute and relative positioning, and using CSS with the more common page development tools. As the author gets into more advanced topics — for which individual subsections can stand more on their own — the recipe format works fine. One advantage is that the section titles end up being detailed enough that the reader can, in most cases, quickly find the relevant section to address their needs.

Overall, this book is a fine addition to O'Reilly's growing list of programming titles. However, like all books, it is not perfect. It does not cover all of the more common tasks that the average Web programmer might want to accomplish — but it does hit the bulk of them. Sadly, all of the figures in the book are in black and white, including those displaying colors on the sample Web pages. Shades of gray are just not optimal. Fortunately, in most cases, the crux of the technique is discernible. In addition, the sample code has too many instances where layout is achieved using tables, and not pure CSS. Lastly, the book's index — similar to that of so many other technical books nowadays — could certainly use some beefing up. After all, if the reader cannot find the desired material using the table of contents, the index is their last hope, before resorting to time-wasting page flipping.

In terms of HTML and CSS information, the topics are well chosen, and the coverage of browser hacks and workarounds is excellent. Also, the most critical parts of the code are helpfully bolded. For those readers completely unfamiliar with JavaScript, it is used only where unavoidable. The book's material is neatly presented, and the author's writing style is straightforward and approachable.

On balance, CSS Cookbook is to be recommended to any developer looking for a CSS guide that is concise, clearly written, well-illustrated, and addresses the most common challenges in building Web pages.

Michael J. Ross is a computer consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. He can be reached at www.ross.ws, hosted by SiteGround.

You can purchase CSS Cookbook from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Experienced and conscientious Web developers, in their efforts to learn from the mistakes of others and to avoid repeating them on their own projects, tend to accumulate tips and recommendations for the many aspects of successfully creating Web sites. These best practices take the form of bookmarked Web pages, saved articles, downloaded PDF files, scribbled notes on scraps of paper, and hastily created documents that will be better organized one of these days, when the developer's schedule becomes less hectic (sure...). Being difficult if not impossible to find later, these pearls of wisdom are rarely consulted before or during each new Web site project. What the developer needs is a book that brings together as many of these best practices as possible, without being overwhelming. Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists may be the answer." Read the rest of Michael's review. Deliver First Class Web Sites author Shirley Kaiser pages 331 publisher SitePoint rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0975841904 summary A collection of Web site development best practices.

Authored by Shirley Kaiser, this book was published by SitePoint in July 2006, under the ISBN 0975841904. The publisher maintains a Web page devoted to the book, where visitors will find the book's table of contents online, a free preview (chapters 6, 12, and 14, in PDF format), editorial and customer reviews, a link to download all of the checklists (also in PDF) for all customers, links and an FAQ for ordering directly from SitePoint, and errata (none reported, as of this writing). The fact that SitePoint is willing to allow readers to post unmoderated comments and ratings of their books, suggests that it has real confidence in the quality of the book's material and readers' evaluations of it.

The aforesaid Web page also offers an online version of the index, but without any of the book's page numbers. At first glance, this might seem rather odd, but it does make some sense: Page numbers online would be of little use without the book itself, which of course already contains the index. Perhaps the index keys are offered to supplement the table of contents in helping the prospective customer learn what topics are covered in the book. In any case, this is the first time that I have seen a book's index online, and it will likely not be the last, if other publishers see the value in following suit.

In the preface, Shirley Kaiser explains that the book is intended to be "...a single source of solid information on best practices for everything from planning, designing, developing, and testing, to launching a web site and maintaining it in the long term. By compiling all this information into checklists, we've turned a vast wealth of detail into convenient, easy-to-scan, simple-to-use chunks organized by topic." A technical reader quickly scanning the book, would likely conclude that the author's goal has been achieved, because the book's 101 checklists comprise over 500 checkpoints, and almost all of them are expanded with at least a paragraph of more detailed explanation; many have accompanying code or images to illustrate the checkpoint.

The book's 331 pages of material are organized into 16 chapters, followed by an appendix that focuses on e-commerce advice. The topics covered in the chapters are: how to get started on a Web development project; planning the Web site with a client; assembling the site's content; managing that content; site usability; color schemes and functionality; information architecture; designing the site's navigation; W3C standards and recommendations; site accessibility; optimization of site performance; search engine optimization; design principles; site testing, including accessibility and usability; launch preparation and execution; post-launch follow-up and maintenance.

In terms of the specificity and usefulness of the checkpoints, they are not all consistently stellar, which arguably would have been an impossible expectation anyway. They range from the obvious (e.g., "Use consistent markup") to the not-so-obvious but equally valid (e.g., "Perform content audits"). Some of the checkpoints may on the surface appear mundane, but they could be a lifesaver further down the road, should a project turn sour (e.g., "Archive a copy of the handover package"). Some of them may seem painfully obvious to any decent developer (e.g., "Check all hyperlinks" and "Test all scripting functions"), but even the majority of those are violated on a daily basis, even by major Web sites, which have no excuse for such sloppiness.

The primary value of this book is how it neatly consolidates a considerable amount of worthy advice culled from the author's research and decade in the trenches of the Internet. The book probably will not replace all of the best practices that any top-notch developer will have assembled over the years — especially as none of it addresses advanced topics — but it could easily serve as a solid foundation upon which to add any supplemental recommendations that the book does not cover. Moreover, the book's material is presented in a fairly concise and quite readable format, making use of what appears to be a font slightly larger than is found in the typical computer programming book.

My only complaint with this title is the way that SitePoint continues to include a growing number of advertising pages, at the end of the book, with the bulk of each page black (sometimes even a bit smeared), and containing absolutely no details about the books being advertised. When SitePoint first began publishing books, if memory serves, they would only include one or two such over-the-top pages — possibly because they had so few titles to advertise at the inception. But now they are truly overdoing it. In Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists, no fewer than a dozen pages are wasted on this unwanted advertising. It would have been far more effective and efficient to simply list the 11 books' titles with a brief summary of each. Whoever decided to waste all that paper and ink, clearly did not read and understand some of the most basic checkpoints presented earlier in the book concerning type size and page content.

But overall, Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists is a much-needed book that brings together a wide range of valuable Web development best practices.

Michael J. Ross is a computer consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter."

You can purchase Deliver First Class Web Sites from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Experienced and conscientious Web developers, in their efforts to learn from the mistakes of others and to avoid repeating them on their own projects, tend to accumulate tips and recommendations for the many aspects of successfully creating Web sites. These best practices take the form of bookmarked Web pages, saved articles, downloaded PDF files, scribbled notes on scraps of paper, and hastily created documents that will be better organized one of these days, when the developer's schedule becomes less hectic (sure...). Being difficult if not impossible to find later, these pearls of wisdom are rarely consulted before or during each new Web site project. What the developer needs is a book that brings together as many of these best practices as possible, without being overwhelming. Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists may be the answer." Read the rest of Michael's review. Deliver First Class Web Sites author Shirley Kaiser pages 331 publisher SitePoint rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0975841904 summary A collection of Web site development best practices.

Authored by Shirley Kaiser, this book was published by SitePoint in July 2006, under the ISBN 0975841904. The publisher maintains a Web page devoted to the book, where visitors will find the book's table of contents online, a free preview (chapters 6, 12, and 14, in PDF format), editorial and customer reviews, a link to download all of the checklists (also in PDF) for all customers, links and an FAQ for ordering directly from SitePoint, and errata (none reported, as of this writing). The fact that SitePoint is willing to allow readers to post unmoderated comments and ratings of their books, suggests that it has real confidence in the quality of the book's material and readers' evaluations of it.

The aforesaid Web page also offers an online version of the index, but without any of the book's page numbers. At first glance, this might seem rather odd, but it does make some sense: Page numbers online would be of little use without the book itself, which of course already contains the index. Perhaps the index keys are offered to supplement the table of contents in helping the prospective customer learn what topics are covered in the book. In any case, this is the first time that I have seen a book's index online, and it will likely not be the last, if other publishers see the value in following suit.

In the preface, Shirley Kaiser explains that the book is intended to be "...a single source of solid information on best practices for everything from planning, designing, developing, and testing, to launching a web site and maintaining it in the long term. By compiling all this information into checklists, we've turned a vast wealth of detail into convenient, easy-to-scan, simple-to-use chunks organized by topic." A technical reader quickly scanning the book, would likely conclude that the author's goal has been achieved, because the book's 101 checklists comprise over 500 checkpoints, and almost all of them are expanded with at least a paragraph of more detailed explanation; many have accompanying code or images to illustrate the checkpoint.

The book's 331 pages of material are organized into 16 chapters, followed by an appendix that focuses on e-commerce advice. The topics covered in the chapters are: how to get started on a Web development project; planning the Web site with a client; assembling the site's content; managing that content; site usability; color schemes and functionality; information architecture; designing the site's navigation; W3C standards and recommendations; site accessibility; optimization of site performance; search engine optimization; design principles; site testing, including accessibility and usability; launch preparation and execution; post-launch follow-up and maintenance.

In terms of the specificity and usefulness of the checkpoints, they are not all consistently stellar, which arguably would have been an impossible expectation anyway. They range from the obvious (e.g., "Use consistent markup") to the not-so-obvious but equally valid (e.g., "Perform content audits"). Some of the checkpoints may on the surface appear mundane, but they could be a lifesaver further down the road, should a project turn sour (e.g., "Archive a copy of the handover package"). Some of them may seem painfully obvious to any decent developer (e.g., "Check all hyperlinks" and "Test all scripting functions"), but even the majority of those are violated on a daily basis, even by major Web sites, which have no excuse for such sloppiness.

The primary value of this book is how it neatly consolidates a considerable amount of worthy advice culled from the author's research and decade in the trenches of the Internet. The book probably will not replace all of the best practices that any top-notch developer will have assembled over the years — especially as none of it addresses advanced topics — but it could easily serve as a solid foundation upon which to add any supplemental recommendations that the book does not cover. Moreover, the book's material is presented in a fairly concise and quite readable format, making use of what appears to be a font slightly larger than is found in the typical computer programming book.

My only complaint with this title is the way that SitePoint continues to include a growing number of advertising pages, at the end of the book, with the bulk of each page black (sometimes even a bit smeared), and containing absolutely no details about the books being advertised. When SitePoint first began publishing books, if memory serves, they would only include one or two such over-the-top pages — possibly because they had so few titles to advertise at the inception. But now they are truly overdoing it. In Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists, no fewer than a dozen pages are wasted on this unwanted advertising. It would have been far more effective and efficient to simply list the 11 books' titles with a brief summary of each. Whoever decided to waste all that paper and ink, clearly did not read and understand some of the most basic checkpoints presented earlier in the book concerning type size and page content.

But overall, Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists is a much-needed book that brings together a wide range of valuable Web development best practices.

Michael J. Ross is a computer consultant, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter."

You can purchase Deliver First Class Web Sites from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Just as PHP and other Web scripting languages have made it possible to create dynamic Web pages, online mapping services are making it possible to create dynamic maps that can be customized by a Web site owner, or made customizable by a site visitor. In the case of Google Maps, this is done using the built-in application programming interface (API), which is described in a new book, Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax author Michael Purvis, Jeffrey Sambells, and Cameron Turner pages 384 publisher Apress rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590597079 summary How to use the Google Maps API to make dynamic online maps.

But first, a brief background: During the mid-1990s, the only generally available mapping applications were desktop programs with location data limited to major cities within the United States. Yet less than one decade later, those programs were obsolete, replaced by Web-based mapping services such as MapBlast, MapQuest, and Yahoo Maps. In early 2005, Google raised the bar, with its own Web-based mapping service that was far more attractive than the others. For countless Internet users, it was their first glimpse of the power of AJAX, a new combination of technologies that allows Web pages to be refreshed asynchronously, providing a faster user interface. But Google Maps later packed another feature, an API that allows Web developers to leverage the service's capabilities in previously unimagined ways.

The authors of Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax — Michael Purvis, Jeffrey Sambells, and Cameron Turner — are based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The book was published in August of 2006, by Apress, under the ISBN of 1590597079. The publisher maintains a Web page devoted to the title, where visitors can find an online table of contents, a sample chapter (Chapter 3, "Interacting with the User and the Server") as a PDF file, and a link for submitting errata (none of which, as of this writing, appear to have been reported — assuming there are any). In addition, the authors have a Web site for the book, where they offer a sample chapter (Chapter 4, "Geocoding Addresses") in PDF format, links to raw data sources, and brief entries describing a variety of related topics, including geocoding services, Google Maps Mobile (GMM), Keyhole Markup Language (KML), and building your own geocoding using Perl.

The book's material is organized into 11 chapters, grouped into three parts. The fourth and final part contains the appendices. The three primary parts can roughly be thought of as presenting the beginning, intermediate, and advanced information. Part 1, "Your First Google Maps," whets the reader's appetite by showing how to easily create some simple maps (discussed below). In addition, it contains a chapter explaining how a Google Maps mashup interacts with the user as well as the server. The final chapter in this part discusses geocoding addresses. Part 2, "Beyond the Basics," explains how to work with third-party data, how to enhance the user interface, how to optimize and scale for large data sets, and finally what possible future directions Google may take with this API. Part 3, "Advanced Map Features and Methods," presents exactly that, covering such topics as creating custom controls and info windows, adding geometric shapes to maps, and getting the most out of geocoding, including how to work with postal codes.

The authors begin Part 1 ("Your First Google Maps") by introducing Google Maps with the two most simple examples possible: Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is an XML-like formatting language that allows one to specify the names, coordinates, and descriptions of one or more locations ("placemarks") in a single file. For anyone who wishes to avoid writing the code themselves, Wayfaring is a Web site that allows one to create and share custom Google Maps by point and click. Even though the introduction to KML is properly brief, instead of only stating that the sample coordinates were discovered manually, the authors should mention at least one simple way to find those coordinates (such as the "Link to this page" link in Satellite view in Google Maps). Nonetheless, it was wise of the authors to use simple examples to get the reader's feet wet as quickly as possible — especially for prospective readers who might skim through the rest of the book and become intimidated by the technical diagrams, JavaScript and PHP code, MySQL queries, XML markup, and mathematical formulas.

There is much to like about this book. The explanations are straightforward, the code is readable, the examples are relevant, and the writing style is approachable. The illustrations, all of which are in black and white, are well-chosen, and not overwhelming in number. In addition to showing the expected results of the sample code, they also provide enough visual incentive to encourage the reader to give the sample code a try, and perhaps develop it further into their own mapping applications.

The book is not too lengthy, clocking in at 384 pages according to the publisher (though, oddly, Amazon.com reports only 350 pages, even though the last page of the appendix reads "358"). The authors resisted the increasingly common temptation to pad the book with superfluous appendices. Instead there are only two. The first explains how and where to find location data, such as addresses and latitude/longitude points. The second appendix presents the details of all of the classes, methods, properties, constants and events defined within the Google Maps API. For some reason the authors mention "objects" instead of properties and events, but I was unable to find any pre-instantiated objects mentioned in that appendix., and I am not sure such are even possible in the API.

Fortunately, the weakest section of the book, its foreword, has the least impact upon the value of the book. It fails to perform the most basic functions of a foreword, such as explaining to prospective readers why they should become actual readers, as well as what the book covers, and how the authors are qualified to provide that coverage. Instead, its author mostly discusses his personal Google Maps Mania site, and even wedges in mention of his appearance on an NPR radio show, which has little to do with the book. He also lists his first five posts to his Mania site, the first of which contains a misspelling, which should have been caught by the book's editors, or at least indicated with a "[sic]." The best part of the foreword is the first few paragraphs, which provide a brief history of Google Maps and the hacking thereof.

Like most if not all of its titles, Apress helpfully starts this book with two versions of the table of contents — the first one serving as a high-level overview, and the second providing far more detail, listing not only sections but subsections. This is a nice touch, and should be employed by all technical publishers. On the other hand, this book does not have a lay-flat binding, which is a shame, as it makes it far more difficult to read the book with both hands free for keyboarding. With the introduction of lay-flat bindings years ago, it is inconceivable to me why it has not been universally adopted, particularly by technical publishers.

Overall, Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax is an excellent introduction to extending the power of Google Maps on the Web, and provides enough detail to both help and entice readers to build their own Google Maps mashups.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Just as PHP and other Web scripting languages have made it possible to create dynamic Web pages, online mapping services are making it possible to create dynamic maps that can be customized by a Web site owner, or made customizable by a site visitor. In the case of Google Maps, this is done using the built-in application programming interface (API), which is described in a new book, Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional." Read on for the rest of Michael's review. Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax author Michael Purvis, Jeffrey Sambells, and Cameron Turner pages 384 publisher Apress rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590597079 summary How to use the Google Maps API to make dynamic online maps.

But first, a brief background: During the mid-1990s, the only generally available mapping applications were desktop programs with location data limited to major cities within the United States. Yet less than one decade later, those programs were obsolete, replaced by Web-based mapping services such as MapBlast, MapQuest, and Yahoo Maps. In early 2005, Google raised the bar, with its own Web-based mapping service that was far more attractive than the others. For countless Internet users, it was their first glimpse of the power of AJAX, a new combination of technologies that allows Web pages to be refreshed asynchronously, providing a faster user interface. But Google Maps later packed another feature, an API that allows Web developers to leverage the service's capabilities in previously unimagined ways.

The authors of Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax — Michael Purvis, Jeffrey Sambells, and Cameron Turner — are based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The book was published in August of 2006, by Apress, under the ISBN of 1590597079. The publisher maintains a Web page devoted to the title, where visitors can find an online table of contents, a sample chapter (Chapter 3, "Interacting with the User and the Server") as a PDF file, and a link for submitting errata (none of which, as of this writing, appear to have been reported — assuming there are any). In addition, the authors have a Web site for the book, where they offer a sample chapter (Chapter 4, "Geocoding Addresses") in PDF format, links to raw data sources, and brief entries describing a variety of related topics, including geocoding services, Google Maps Mobile (GMM), Keyhole Markup Language (KML), and building your own geocoding using Perl.

The book's material is organized into 11 chapters, grouped into three parts. The fourth and final part contains the appendices. The three primary parts can roughly be thought of as presenting the beginning, intermediate, and advanced information. Part 1, "Your First Google Maps," whets the reader's appetite by showing how to easily create some simple maps (discussed below). In addition, it contains a chapter explaining how a Google Maps mashup interacts with the user as well as the server. The final chapter in this part discusses geocoding addresses. Part 2, "Beyond the Basics," explains how to work with third-party data, how to enhance the user interface, how to optimize and scale for large data sets, and finally what possible future directions Google may take with this API. Part 3, "Advanced Map Features and Methods," presents exactly that, covering such topics as creating custom controls and info windows, adding geometric shapes to maps, and getting the most out of geocoding, including how to work with postal codes.

The authors begin Part 1 ("Your First Google Maps") by introducing Google Maps with the two most simple examples possible: Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is an XML-like formatting language that allows one to specify the names, coordinates, and descriptions of one or more locations ("placemarks") in a single file. For anyone who wishes to avoid writing the code themselves, Wayfaring is a Web site that allows one to create and share custom Google Maps by point and click. Even though the introduction to KML is properly brief, instead of only stating that the sample coordinates were discovered manually, the authors should mention at least one simple way to find those coordinates (such as the "Link to this page" link in Satellite view in Google Maps). Nonetheless, it was wise of the authors to use simple examples to get the reader's feet wet as quickly as possible — especially for prospective readers who might skim through the rest of the book and become intimidated by the technical diagrams, JavaScript and PHP code, MySQL queries, XML markup, and mathematical formulas.

There is much to like about this book. The explanations are straightforward, the code is readable, the examples are relevant, and the writing style is approachable. The illustrations, all of which are in black and white, are well-chosen, and not overwhelming in number. In addition to showing the expected results of the sample code, they also provide enough visual incentive to encourage the reader to give the sample code a try, and perhaps develop it further into their own mapping applications.

The book is not too lengthy, clocking in at 384 pages according to the publisher (though, oddly, Amazon.com reports only 350 pages, even though the last page of the appendix reads "358"). The authors resisted the increasingly common temptation to pad the book with superfluous appendices. Instead there are only two. The first explains how and where to find location data, such as addresses and latitude/longitude points. The second appendix presents the details of all of the classes, methods, properties, constants and events defined within the Google Maps API. For some reason the authors mention "objects" instead of properties and events, but I was unable to find any pre-instantiated objects mentioned in that appendix., and I am not sure such are even possible in the API.

Fortunately, the weakest section of the book, its foreword, has the least impact upon the value of the book. It fails to perform the most basic functions of a foreword, such as explaining to prospective readers why they should become actual readers, as well as what the book covers, and how the authors are qualified to provide that coverage. Instead, its author mostly discusses his personal Google Maps Mania site, and even wedges in mention of his appearance on an NPR radio show, which has little to do with the book. He also lists his first five posts to his Mania site, the first of which contains a misspelling, which should have been caught by the book's editors, or at least indicated with a "[sic]." The best part of the foreword is the first few paragraphs, which provide a brief history of Google Maps and the hacking thereof.

Like most if not all of its titles, Apress helpfully starts this book with two versions of the table of contents — the first one serving as a high-level overview, and the second providing far more detail, listing not only sections but subsections. This is a nice touch, and should be employed by all technical publishers. On the other hand, this book does not have a lay-flat binding, which is a shame, as it makes it far more difficult to read the book with both hands free for keyboarding. With the introduction of lay-flat bindings years ago, it is inconceivable to me why it has not been universally adopted, particularly by technical publishers.

Overall, Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax is an excellent introduction to extending the power of Google Maps on the Web, and provides enough detail to both help and entice readers to build their own Google Maps mashups.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "The global accessibility of Web sites is a double-edged sword: At the same time that your online e-commerce site is open for business to anyone with an Internet connection, it is also open to malicious attack. Web sites based upon the popular language PHP, are no exception. Thus, it is both astonishing and worrisome that there are currently so few books devoted to PHP security — particularly ones that go beyond the handful of typical security countermeasures discussed in articles. Fortunately, Pro PHP Security, written by Chris Snyder and Michael Southwell, is intended to fill this critical need." Read the rest of Michael's review. Pro PHP Security author Chris Snyder and Michael Southwell pages 528 publisher Apress rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590595084 summary A comprehensive guide to developing secure PHP-based Web sites.

Pro PHP Security spans 528 pages, consisting of 24 chapters organized into four major parts. The first part, comprising only one chapter, explains the nature and significance of computer security, and reasons as to why absolute security is an unattainable goal. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to take all appropriate and reasonable security measures, and the authors provide a brief overview of the different types of attacks to which Web applications are vulnerable.

On their Web site, Apress has a page devoted to the book, where they offer the book's source code (in a Zip archive file), the table of contents, corrections to the book (i.e., errata), and a sample chapter (Chapter 12 - Preventing SQL Injection) in PDF format. In addition, there is a link for any reader who would like to purchase this title as an e-book.

One of the most laudable aspects of Pro PHP Security, is that the authors — both experienced software and Web site developers — go far beyond the standard PHP security advice of validating and escaping user input, etc. Those topics are covered in depth, but they are provided in the context of thorough discussions as to how to set up a secure environment in which to use those techniques. In addition, the authors present best practices that have evolved over time, as Web masters and system administrators have learned — often the hard way — the general types of attacks to which their Web sites and computer networks have been subjected.

In fact, Snyder and Southwell hold off on presenting the aforesaid specific PHP security techniques, until the third part of the book. Prior to that, they explain the characteristics of a secure online computing environment, such as using encryption, securing network connections via SSL and SSH, controlling access via authentication and permissions, and other important topics. Their coverage of the subject matter is complete, without being overwhelming. For instance, the material on encryption is helpfully divided into two separate chapters — devoted to theory and practice, respectively. Consequently, a PHP application developer or system administrator can immediately dive into the authors' recommended practices for encoding sensitive data, without getting bogged down in the theoretical underpinnings, if the reader is in a hurry to implement encryption on their own systems, or simply has no interest in the theory behind the methods.

As noted earlier, Part 3 of this monograph explains all of the well-known techniques that crackers use for attacking PHP-based Web sites, as well as the countermeasures that should be adopted by the developer or maintainer of the site. First up is validation of user input, which — though being essential to basic security — is still neglected on far too many Web sites. The attention to detail seen in this discussion is also reflected in the subsequent chapters, which cover SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote execution, temporary files, and session hijacking. For each topic, the authors explain how the typical attack is attempted, and what needs to be done to prevent such attacks.

The fourth and last major part of the book covers vitally important topics that are usually glossed over in most PHP security books, or neglected altogether. Snyder and Southwell explain methods of limiting access to your Web site to humans (thus minimizing attacks that employ scripts), verifying the identities of those users, authorizing what those users can do on your system, and tracking their actions once they have logged in. The authors also explain how to reduce the chances of data loss, and how to execute system commands and make remote procedure calls without exposing your site to vulnerabilities. The last chapter covers the benefits to be gained from opening up your site and its source code to a review by your technical peers.

This book has much to recommend it: The discussions of security issues are more complete and thorough than in any other book that I have seen. The information chosen by the authors is detailed enough to be understandable and usable, but not so excessive as to prove daunting or discouraging to the reader who needs answers to their security questions, and does not have the time or inclination to slog through academic or pointless discussion. The information is well-organized, and presented in context, so the reader is not simply given a laundry list of security techniques, but instead better understands the rationale behind them. Lastly, because no technical topic can be covered in full in a single book, the authors provide a generous number of references to outside resources.

The content of this book appears to have only one noticeable weakness, and that is the poor quality of the comments in the sample source code. Not only are they few in number and lacking in detail, but they are written in all lowercase letters, with little to no punctuation. This coding style results in the comments visually blending in with the code itself, and makes reading both to be more difficult than is justifiable.

The physical book itself also has only one weakness, and that may only apply to a portion of the copies produced and distributed by the publisher. Specifically, the bottom and side edges of the book are cut cleanly, while the top edge is quite rough. As I was unable to find any mention within the book as to a possible reason or advantage for having the rough edging on top of the pages, I can only conclude that it was not intended on the part of Apress, and represents an error in production. I hope that the copy that I received — kindly given to me by the publisher — is not representative of all the copies produced and sold.

In spite of these minor complaints, I was quite pleased with this book. Pro PHP Security is arguably the most comprehensive PHP security book available, and is highly recommended to any developer or administrator of a PHP-based Web site.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase Pro PHP Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "The global accessibility of Web sites is a double-edged sword: At the same time that your online e-commerce site is open for business to anyone with an Internet connection, it is also open to malicious attack. Web sites based upon the popular language PHP, are no exception. Thus, it is both astonishing and worrisome that there are currently so few books devoted to PHP security — particularly ones that go beyond the handful of typical security countermeasures discussed in articles. Fortunately, Pro PHP Security, written by Chris Snyder and Michael Southwell, is intended to fill this critical need." Read the rest of Michael's review. Pro PHP Security author Chris Snyder and Michael Southwell pages 528 publisher Apress rating 9 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590595084 summary A comprehensive guide to developing secure PHP-based Web sites.

Pro PHP Security spans 528 pages, consisting of 24 chapters organized into four major parts. The first part, comprising only one chapter, explains the nature and significance of computer security, and reasons as to why absolute security is an unattainable goal. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to take all appropriate and reasonable security measures, and the authors provide a brief overview of the different types of attacks to which Web applications are vulnerable.

On their Web site, Apress has a page devoted to the book, where they offer the book's source code (in a Zip archive file), the table of contents, corrections to the book (i.e., errata), and a sample chapter (Chapter 12 - Preventing SQL Injection) in PDF format. In addition, there is a link for any reader who would like to purchase this title as an e-book.

One of the most laudable aspects of Pro PHP Security, is that the authors — both experienced software and Web site developers — go far beyond the standard PHP security advice of validating and escaping user input, etc. Those topics are covered in depth, but they are provided in the context of thorough discussions as to how to set up a secure environment in which to use those techniques. In addition, the authors present best practices that have evolved over time, as Web masters and system administrators have learned — often the hard way — the general types of attacks to which their Web sites and computer networks have been subjected.

In fact, Snyder and Southwell hold off on presenting the aforesaid specific PHP security techniques, until the third part of the book. Prior to that, they explain the characteristics of a secure online computing environment, such as using encryption, securing network connections via SSL and SSH, controlling access via authentication and permissions, and other important topics. Their coverage of the subject matter is complete, without being overwhelming. For instance, the material on encryption is helpfully divided into two separate chapters — devoted to theory and practice, respectively. Consequently, a PHP application developer or system administrator can immediately dive into the authors' recommended practices for encoding sensitive data, without getting bogged down in the theoretical underpinnings, if the reader is in a hurry to implement encryption on their own systems, or simply has no interest in the theory behind the methods.

As noted earlier, Part 3 of this monograph explains all of the well-known techniques that crackers use for attacking PHP-based Web sites, as well as the countermeasures that should be adopted by the developer or maintainer of the site. First up is validation of user input, which — though being essential to basic security — is still neglected on far too many Web sites. The attention to detail seen in this discussion is also reflected in the subsequent chapters, which cover SQL injection, cross-site scripting, remote execution, temporary files, and session hijacking. For each topic, the authors explain how the typical attack is attempted, and what needs to be done to prevent such attacks.

The fourth and last major part of the book covers vitally important topics that are usually glossed over in most PHP security books, or neglected altogether. Snyder and Southwell explain methods of limiting access to your Web site to humans (thus minimizing attacks that employ scripts), verifying the identities of those users, authorizing what those users can do on your system, and tracking their actions once they have logged in. The authors also explain how to reduce the chances of data loss, and how to execute system commands and make remote procedure calls without exposing your site to vulnerabilities. The last chapter covers the benefits to be gained from opening up your site and its source code to a review by your technical peers.

This book has much to recommend it: The discussions of security issues are more complete and thorough than in any other book that I have seen. The information chosen by the authors is detailed enough to be understandable and usable, but not so excessive as to prove daunting or discouraging to the reader who needs answers to their security questions, and does not have the time or inclination to slog through academic or pointless discussion. The information is well-organized, and presented in context, so the reader is not simply given a laundry list of security techniques, but instead better understands the rationale behind them. Lastly, because no technical topic can be covered in full in a single book, the authors provide a generous number of references to outside resources.

The content of this book appears to have only one noticeable weakness, and that is the poor quality of the comments in the sample source code. Not only are they few in number and lacking in detail, but they are written in all lowercase letters, with little to no punctuation. This coding style results in the comments visually blending in with the code itself, and makes reading both to be more difficult than is justifiable.

The physical book itself also has only one weakness, and that may only apply to a portion of the copies produced and distributed by the publisher. Specifically, the bottom and side edges of the book are cut cleanly, while the top edge is quite rough. As I was unable to find any mention within the book as to a possible reason or advantage for having the rough edging on top of the pages, I can only conclude that it was not intended on the part of Apress, and represents an error in production. I hope that the copy that I received — kindly given to me by the publisher — is not representative of all the copies produced and sold.

In spite of these minor complaints, I was quite pleased with this book. Pro PHP Security is arguably the most comprehensive PHP security book available, and is highly recommended to any developer or administrator of a PHP-based Web site.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase Pro PHP Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Given the current popularity of the Web development language PHP, it makes sense that newcomers to the language have a large number of introductory and reference volumes from which to choose. But for the more advanced PHP programmer, there are far fewer titles that explain how to make the most of the language, by applying it to solve relatively substantial problems. One such book is PHP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Dynamic Websites, by Jack D. Herrington. Read the rest of Michael's review. PHP Hacks author Jack D. Herrington pages 468 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596101392 summary Practical techniques and source code for improving PHP-based Web sites and applications.

The book was published by O'Reilly Media in December of 2005. Despite its title, PHP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Dynamic Websites is clearly intended to show how PHP's capabilities can be extended beyond its most common usage for creating dynamic and database-driven Web pages, and can be employed in such areas as graphics, reporting, Web site testing, code generation, and even fun purposes (for those few programmers who find the former topics less than entertaining). The author, assisted by six contributors listed in the Credits section, manages to pack an impressive number of general programming ideas and PHP-specific topics within this title's 468 pages. The material is grouped into 10 chapters, each of which contains a generous number of "hacks," each in its own section.

As with most if not all of the other titles published by O'Reilly, this book has a Web page that offers an overview of the book, its table of contents, all of the book's code (in both Zip and tar file format), and a list of confirmed and unconfirmed errata. In addition, the site hosts five sample hacks (in PDF format): accessing iPhoto pictures, generating Excel spreadsheets, avoiding the "double submit" problem, reading RSS feeds on your PSP, and creating custom Google Maps. Perusing these hacks would give the prospective buyer a clear sense as to the style of the book's other 95 hacks, as well as the (low) level of PHP expertise needed to understand them.

The book begins with a preface that describes the organization, conventions, and icons chosen for the book. Also, it covers the legality of the code samples, lists contact information, and mentions O'Reilly's Safari online book service, which contains this title among many other PHP resources. What is perhaps most unique about this book's preface is that the author identifies over half a dozen weaknesses commonly seen in PHP applications, and explains how his book addresses those problems. In addition, he makes explicit how some of the hacks can be used for jazzing up one's Web site or Web-based application.

The first chapter discusses how to install PHP on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and then verify that the installation was done properly. Herrington then briefly explains how to install MySQL and perform some basic database management. The chapter concludes with coverage of installing the PEAR library on your local machine and on your Web host's server (which is incorrectly identified as your "ISP machine," apparently assuming that most developers choose their Internet service providers for hosting their sites, when in fact the opposite is true). Since the typical reader of a non-beginning book such as this no doubt has one or more introductory and/or reference PHP books at hand, it would seem superfluous to waste time and space explaining how to install these components. But few pages are taken up by the material.

The next chapter is devoted to hacks that help to jazz up the design of one's Web sites, including how to create a skinnable interface, build a breadcrumb trail, create HTML boxes, add tabs to your interface, and other valuable techniques. Subsequent chapters offer hacks in the areas of dynamic HTML (DHTML), graphics and digital pictures, databases and XML, application and e-commerce design, patterns and PHP object orientation, testing and documentation generation, and building alternative user interfaces. The 10th and final chapter covers some "fun stuff," such as creating dynamic playlists, developing a media upload/download center, and even putting Wikipedia on a Sony PlayStation Portable.

Rather than try to explain in detail all of the many topics covered in the book, I instead encourage the interested reader to visit the publisher's Web page, and scan through the table of contents provided, to get a better idea as to how much of the book would be of interest to the individual. Also, the five sample hacks listed on the site, would be well worth examining and trying out. Overall, the topics chosen reflect favorably upon the judgment of the lead author and the other contributors to the book. The typical PHP veteran would likely be interested in most of the applications covered, and would probably learn some new tricks, especially in the areas of patterns and code testing, regardless of their level of experience.

Like all books, this one is not perfect. As with the first printing of most technical books; particularly those chock-full of source code; the book contains a fair number of errata, likely even greater in number than those reported and listed on the publisher's Web site, as mentioned earlier. Consequently, any reader who chooses to test the sample code and he or she would be encouraged to do so; should keep one browser window or editor buffer open and devoted to those errata, so as to minimize the time spent trying to figure out why some sample code is not working as advertised.

Some readers posting in forums have complained that the sample code has evidently not been fully tested on all platforms, nor in all Web browsers. Since few if any reviewers would have the time, resources, or inclination to verify these claims, it should suffice to simply bear in mind that the script output and other behavior detailed in the book might not exactly match those experienced during one's own usage of the code.

The fact that there were several cooks in the kitchen brewing up this particular book, is obvious from the way that the code formatting is not consistent throughout the book, as well as the variety of problem-solving styles. Fortunately, neither weakness is of much consequence, and the latter might even be considered a "feature," as it allows the reader to see how a number of veteran PHP developers approach solving a problem.

Most technical works written by a team of authors, end up as excessive "doorstops" that are often frustrating to read as a result of the wildly inconsistent writing and coding styles, to say nothing of the material often being out of date as a result of the long production time needed by the publisher. The opposite case can be even worse, when a publisher releases a book that was clearly thrown together as quickly as possible to capitalize upon a hot new trend in technology. Thankfully, PHP Hacks keeps the style differences to a minimum, and benefits from having a lead author responsible for the book as a whole.

Some programming purists may take issue with the use of the term "hack" used as a synonym for a small PHP application or the use of such for solving a problem, since the majority of the PHP scripts in the book do not involve any programming or problem-solving that would be considered notably clever or elegant. Yet the misuse of the term seems to be spreading, and is not limited to this particular book ; another example of marketing overpowering stability of language. In the preface of PHP Hacks, the author explains that he uses the term in the positive sense of creative participation, to help reclaim it from its popular usage in place of the more traditional term "cracking," i.e., breaking into systems.

Yet aside from these complaints, PHP Hacks is a worthy title that offers explanations and source code for many valuable site-enhancing applications, testing and code generation techniques, and critical e-commerce safeguards. I recommend this book to any PHP developer who would like to add to their Web sites' capabilities, as well as their knowledge of what PHP can do.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase PHP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Dynamic Websites from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Given the current popularity of the Web development language PHP, it makes sense that newcomers to the language have a large number of introductory and reference volumes from which to choose. But for the more advanced PHP programmer, there are far fewer titles that explain how to make the most of the language, by applying it to solve relatively substantial problems. One such book is PHP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Dynamic Websites, by Jack D. Herrington. Read the rest of Michael's review. PHP Hacks author Jack D. Herrington pages 468 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0596101392 summary Practical techniques and source code for improving PHP-based Web sites and applications.

The book was published by O'Reilly Media in December of 2005. Despite its title, PHP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Dynamic Websites is clearly intended to show how PHP's capabilities can be extended beyond its most common usage for creating dynamic and database-driven Web pages, and can be employed in such areas as graphics, reporting, Web site testing, code generation, and even fun purposes (for those few programmers who find the former topics less than entertaining). The author, assisted by six contributors listed in the Credits section, manages to pack an impressive number of general programming ideas and PHP-specific topics within this title's 468 pages. The material is grouped into 10 chapters, each of which contains a generous number of "hacks," each in its own section.

As with most if not all of the other titles published by O'Reilly, this book has a Web page that offers an overview of the book, its table of contents, all of the book's code (in both Zip and tar file format), and a list of confirmed and unconfirmed errata. In addition, the site hosts five sample hacks (in PDF format): accessing iPhoto pictures, generating Excel spreadsheets, avoiding the "double submit" problem, reading RSS feeds on your PSP, and creating custom Google Maps. Perusing these hacks would give the prospective buyer a clear sense as to the style of the book's other 95 hacks, as well as the (low) level of PHP expertise needed to understand them.

The book begins with a preface that describes the organization, conventions, and icons chosen for the book. Also, it covers the legality of the code samples, lists contact information, and mentions O'Reilly's Safari online book service, which contains this title among many other PHP resources. What is perhaps most unique about this book's preface is that the author identifies over half a dozen weaknesses commonly seen in PHP applications, and explains how his book addresses those problems. In addition, he makes explicit how some of the hacks can be used for jazzing up one's Web site or Web-based application.

The first chapter discusses how to install PHP on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and then verify that the installation was done properly. Herrington then briefly explains how to install MySQL and perform some basic database management. The chapter concludes with coverage of installing the PEAR library on your local machine and on your Web host's server (which is incorrectly identified as your "ISP machine," apparently assuming that most developers choose their Internet service providers for hosting their sites, when in fact the opposite is true). Since the typical reader of a non-beginning book such as this no doubt has one or more introductory and/or reference PHP books at hand, it would seem superfluous to waste time and space explaining how to install these components. But few pages are taken up by the material.

The next chapter is devoted to hacks that help to jazz up the design of one's Web sites, including how to create a skinnable interface, build a breadcrumb trail, create HTML boxes, add tabs to your interface, and other valuable techniques. Subsequent chapters offer hacks in the areas of dynamic HTML (DHTML), graphics and digital pictures, databases and XML, application and e-commerce design, patterns and PHP object orientation, testing and documentation generation, and building alternative user interfaces. The 10th and final chapter covers some "fun stuff," such as creating dynamic playlists, developing a media upload/download center, and even putting Wikipedia on a Sony PlayStation Portable.

Rather than try to explain in detail all of the many topics covered in the book, I instead encourage the interested reader to visit the publisher's Web page, and scan through the table of contents provided, to get a better idea as to how much of the book would be of interest to the individual. Also, the five sample hacks listed on the site, would be well worth examining and trying out. Overall, the topics chosen reflect favorably upon the judgment of the lead author and the other contributors to the book. The typical PHP veteran would likely be interested in most of the applications covered, and would probably learn some new tricks, especially in the areas of patterns and code testing, regardless of their level of experience.

Like all books, this one is not perfect. As with the first printing of most technical books; particularly those chock-full of source code; the book contains a fair number of errata, likely even greater in number than those reported and listed on the publisher's Web site, as mentioned earlier. Consequently, any reader who chooses to test the sample code and he or she would be encouraged to do so; should keep one browser window or editor buffer open and devoted to those errata, so as to minimize the time spent trying to figure out why some sample code is not working as advertised.

Some readers posting in forums have complained that the sample code has evidently not been fully tested on all platforms, nor in all Web browsers. Since few if any reviewers would have the time, resources, or inclination to verify these claims, it should suffice to simply bear in mind that the script output and other behavior detailed in the book might not exactly match those experienced during one's own usage of the code.

The fact that there were several cooks in the kitchen brewing up this particular book, is obvious from the way that the code formatting is not consistent throughout the book, as well as the variety of problem-solving styles. Fortunately, neither weakness is of much consequence, and the latter might even be considered a "feature," as it allows the reader to see how a number of veteran PHP developers approach solving a problem.

Most technical works written by a team of authors, end up as excessive "doorstops" that are often frustrating to read as a result of the wildly inconsistent writing and coding styles, to say nothing of the material often being out of date as a result of the long production time needed by the publisher. The opposite case can be even worse, when a publisher releases a book that was clearly thrown together as quickly as possible to capitalize upon a hot new trend in technology. Thankfully, PHP Hacks keeps the style differences to a minimum, and benefits from having a lead author responsible for the book as a whole.

Some programming purists may take issue with the use of the term "hack" used as a synonym for a small PHP application or the use of such for solving a problem, since the majority of the PHP scripts in the book do not involve any programming or problem-solving that would be considered notably clever or elegant. Yet the misuse of the term seems to be spreading, and is not limited to this particular book ; another example of marketing overpowering stability of language. In the preface of PHP Hacks, the author explains that he uses the term in the positive sense of creative participation, to help reclaim it from its popular usage in place of the more traditional term "cracking," i.e., breaking into systems.

Yet aside from these complaints, PHP Hacks is a worthy title that offers explanations and source code for many valuable site-enhancing applications, testing and code generation techniques, and critical e-commerce safeguards. I recommend this book to any PHP developer who would like to add to their Web sites' capabilities, as well as their knowledge of what PHP can do.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase PHP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Creating Dynamic Websites from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Of all the popular programming languages now in use, Perl is perhaps the best suited for writing utilities — for several reasons, such as its text-processing capabilities, ease of addressing system resources, and minimal language overhead for input, output, list processing. It was designed to blend the rapid solution development of shell scripting with the powerful control constructs of third-generation languages. Consequently, Perl quickly became a favorite language for developing programs ranging from system administration utilities to CGI scripts that power Web sites. In fact, Perl has been called the glue that holds the Internet together. The tremendous flexibility and power of Perl is seen in Steve Oualline's book Wicked Cool Perl Scripts: Useful Perl Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems." Read the rest of Michael's review Wicked Cool Perl Scripts author Steve Oualline pages 336 publisher No Starch Press rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1593270623 summary 47 useful Perl scripts for Web site management or CGI, Linux or Unix system administration, managing pictures, etc.

Published by the cleverly named No Starch Press, Wicked Cool Perl Scripts comprises 336 pages, spanning 11 chapters, with a brief introduction, as well as an index. The book appeared in February 2006, and was published under the ISBN of 1593270623. No Starch Press maintains a Web page for the book, where readers can find a sample chapter (the third one, covering CGI debugging), in PDF format. There is a link for downloading all of the source code.

The book presents 47 scripts, grouped into 11 categories: general-purpose utilities, Web site management, CGI debugging, CGI programs, Internet data mining, Unix system administration, picture utilities, games and learning tools, development tools, mapping, and regular expression graphing. The scripts perform such functions as finding duplicate files on your PC, converting currencies, processing error logs, generating jokes randomly, getting stock quotes, and managing photos and other images. Some of the scripts play games, while others would be invaluable to any Linux or Unix system administrator. For readers with their own Web sites, the book offers scripts for verifying links, locating orphan files, detecting hackers, and locking them out. In addition, there is a script for counting the number of visitors to your site, and even one for presenting a guest book. Software developers will find the material valuable, as there are Perl scripts for generating code, locating dead code, and handling regular expressions — parsing and graphing them.

The scripts themselves are fairly wide ranging in complexity and size, with a few fitting on a single page of the book, while others require more than ten pages. Fortunately, the scripts generally contain enough comments to be clear in how they work to any programmer comfortable with the language. Nonetheless, the author explains how to run each script, what sort of results the reader should see, how the script works, and what modifications one might want to make to it ("hacking the script"). In addition, every one of the scripts contains a POD (Plain Old Documentation) section, though only in the downloadable version — not the version seen in the book, to save space.

It is doubtful that any beginning Perl programmer might mistake this book for a Perl primer or reference. The title alone makes clear that the focus is on the offered scripts themselves, and their ability to help the reader solve common problems. On the other hand, Perl programmers of any level of fluency with the language would benefit from reading through the scripts, as well as the author's explanation of how they address and solve each problem. I myself have been programming in Perl for ages, and yet I spotted CPAN modules that I can use in my own Perl scripts in the future.

The value of the scripts themselves to each individual reader, naturally depends upon what sort of tasks the reader would like to accomplish with Perl. The 11 categories of scripts are varied enough so as likely to be of use to just about anyone who would like to use the "Swiss Army knife of languages" for getting the job done on their computer, or that of their employer (as a system administrator). Personally I found most useful the scripts for detecting changed files, scanning Web sites for dead links, and parsing regular expressions.

There are other aspects to like about this book. It has a RepKover binding, to lay flat when open. The illustrations are clear and not excessive in number. Unlike some technical authors, whose weak attempts at humor simply make their obtuse material more annoying, Oualline is more subtle, such as his reference to the cost of Microsoft Windows CDs in a Hong Kong shop, or "Ingesting a Cheerio nasally." Well, perhaps not always subtle, but invariably welcome in what could otherwise be an extremely dry subject.

Like any book, there are some areas for improvement, perhaps in future editions: In the illustrations that employ rays pointing from one node to the next, some of the curved rays are remarkably jagged, as if they were not computer-generated. Far more importantly, some of the scripts could benefit from more internal comments, as well as having the code broken up into smaller functions, which improves clarity and maintainability. Also, some of the variables and functions could use more descriptive names. For instance, using two examples from a randomly chosen page: $file_name would be more clear than $cur_file (is it the file's name, full path, or contents?). print_file_cell() would be better than do_file() (do what to the file?).

But aside from those weaknesses, Wicked Cool Perl Scripts is a fine book that would be of interest to any Perl programmer, regardless of their expertise. In fact, the administrator of a Web site or a Linux/Unix server, would not even have to know the language in order to download these Perl scripts, and use them to solve problems on the job.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com.

You can purchase Wicked Cool Perl Scripts from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Of all the popular programming languages now in use, Perl is perhaps the best suited for writing utilities — for several reasons, such as its text-processing capabilities, ease of addressing system resources, and minimal language overhead for input, output, list processing. It was designed to blend the rapid solution development of shell scripting with the powerful control constructs of third-generation languages. Consequently, Perl quickly became a favorite language for developing programs ranging from system administration utilities to CGI scripts that power Web sites. In fact, Perl has been called the glue that holds the Internet together. The tremendous flexibility and power of Perl is seen in Steve Oualline's book Wicked Cool Perl Scripts: Useful Perl Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems." Read the rest of Michael's review Wicked Cool Perl Scripts author Steve Oualline pages 336 publisher No Starch Press rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1593270623 summary 47 useful Perl scripts for Web site management or CGI, Linux or Unix system administration, managing pictures, etc.

Published by the cleverly named No Starch Press, Wicked Cool Perl Scripts comprises 336 pages, spanning 11 chapters, with a brief introduction, as well as an index. The book appeared in February 2006, and was published under the ISBN of 1593270623. No Starch Press maintains a Web page for the book, where readers can find a sample chapter (the third one, covering CGI debugging), in PDF format. There is a link for downloading all of the source code.

The book presents 47 scripts, grouped into 11 categories: general-purpose utilities, Web site management, CGI debugging, CGI programs, Internet data mining, Unix system administration, picture utilities, games and learning tools, development tools, mapping, and regular expression graphing. The scripts perform such functions as finding duplicate files on your PC, converting currencies, processing error logs, generating jokes randomly, getting stock quotes, and managing photos and other images. Some of the scripts play games, while others would be invaluable to any Linux or Unix system administrator. For readers with their own Web sites, the book offers scripts for verifying links, locating orphan files, detecting hackers, and locking them out. In addition, there is a script for counting the number of visitors to your site, and even one for presenting a guest book. Software developers will find the material valuable, as there are Perl scripts for generating code, locating dead code, and handling regular expressions — parsing and graphing them.

The scripts themselves are fairly wide ranging in complexity and size, with a few fitting on a single page of the book, while others require more than ten pages. Fortunately, the scripts generally contain enough comments to be clear in how they work to any programmer comfortable with the language. Nonetheless, the author explains how to run each script, what sort of results the reader should see, how the script works, and what modifications one might want to make to it ("hacking the script"). In addition, every one of the scripts contains a POD (Plain Old Documentation) section, though only in the downloadable version — not the version seen in the book, to save space.

It is doubtful that any beginning Perl programmer might mistake this book for a Perl primer or reference. The title alone makes clear that the focus is on the offered scripts themselves, and their ability to help the reader solve common problems. On the other hand, Perl programmers of any level of fluency with the language would benefit from reading through the scripts, as well as the author's explanation of how they address and solve each problem. I myself have been programming in Perl for ages, and yet I spotted CPAN modules that I can use in my own Perl scripts in the future.

The value of the scripts themselves to each individual reader, naturally depends upon what sort of tasks the reader would like to accomplish with Perl. The 11 categories of scripts are varied enough so as likely to be of use to just about anyone who would like to use the "Swiss Army knife of languages" for getting the job done on their computer, or that of their employer (as a system administrator). Personally I found most useful the scripts for detecting changed files, scanning Web sites for dead links, and parsing regular expressions.

There are other aspects to like about this book. It has a RepKover binding, to lay flat when open. The illustrations are clear and not excessive in number. Unlike some technical authors, whose weak attempts at humor simply make their obtuse material more annoying, Oualline is more subtle, such as his reference to the cost of Microsoft Windows CDs in a Hong Kong shop, or "Ingesting a Cheerio nasally." Well, perhaps not always subtle, but invariably welcome in what could otherwise be an extremely dry subject.

Like any book, there are some areas for improvement, perhaps in future editions: In the illustrations that employ rays pointing from one node to the next, some of the curved rays are remarkably jagged, as if they were not computer-generated. Far more importantly, some of the scripts could benefit from more internal comments, as well as having the code broken up into smaller functions, which improves clarity and maintainability. Also, some of the variables and functions could use more descriptive names. For instance, using two examples from a randomly chosen page: $file_name would be more clear than $cur_file (is it the file's name, full path, or contents?). print_file_cell() would be better than do_file() (do what to the file?).

But aside from those weaknesses, Wicked Cool Perl Scripts is a fine book that would be of interest to any Perl programmer, regardless of their expertise. In fact, the administrator of a Web site or a Linux/Unix server, would not even have to know the language in order to download these Perl scripts, and use them to solve problems on the job.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com.

You can purchase Wicked Cool Perl Scripts from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "To modify a digital image, most computer users turn to a GUI-based image processing application, such as Photoshop. However, while Photoshop and many other similar programs can process multiple images in batch mode, they still require manual usage, and thus typically are unable to process images via a command line or within a second application. Those capabilities call for a programmatic digital image manipulation tool such as ImageMagick, which is explored in a relatively new book, The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick." Read the rest of Michael's review. The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick author Michael Still pages 335 publisher Apress rating 7 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590595904 summary An introduction to using ImageMagick for digital image manipulation.

The author of this title is Michael Still, a programmer who gained experience with ImageMagick during his eight years of working on imaging applications, as well as writing articles on ImageMagick for IBM DeveloperWorks. Apress maintains a Web page for the title, where a visitor can purchase the electronic version of the book, read its table of contents, or download its source code or a sample chapter (Chapter 4 — Using Other ImageMagick Tools) in PDF format. They also have a link where readers can submit errata — and apparently be the first to do so, as there are no existing errata listed on the Web page.

The book's 335 pages are organized into a dozen chapters, following an introduction and a few other standard sections, including a forward written by ImageMagick's principal architect, Christy, who briefly explains the product's 20 years of history, development, and lack of decent documentation. That is where this book is intended to fill the gap, and Christy notes that most future questions about ImageMagick will be answered by pointing people to this book, as is also noted on ImageMagick's homepage.

The first chapter of the book explains how to install and configure ImageMagick, for several Linux distros, as well as Microsoft Windows — using the precompiled versions, or by compiling from ImageMagick's source code. The chapter is wrapped up with a brief description of ImageMagick's online help, debug output, verbose output, and version information. The next ten chapters fall into two categories: ImageMagick usage as a standalone, and from within other applications. The first category of chapters covers basic image manipulation, compression, other metadata, ImageMagick tools, artistic transformations, other image transformations, and drawing commands. The second category discusses how to utilize ImageMagick from within programs written in Perl, C, Ruby, and PHP. The 12th and final chapter is quite brief, and describes where to find online help (Web sites, blogs, mailing lists, and forums) and where to report any apparent bug in ImageMagick.

For Windows users, the first chapter may begin badly, as the author fails to explain which precompiled version the reader should select if they wish to install ImageMagick on a Windows PC. For each version, there are four flavors to choose from. But which one is right for the reader? "static" vs. "dll?" "Q16" vs. "Q8?" What are the differences? The ImageMagick Web site and FTP file listings appear to have no README file or installation help file to explain which flavor you should download. The book should provide some assistance here, but does not. The former topic, static versus DLL, is mentioned only in reference to compiling ImageMagick from source — information which the reader will probably never see, should they choose to install the precompiled binaries and get started on ImageMagick as quickly as possible.

The latter topic is not covered at all — not even in the index, where a "quantum depth" entry would be useful. For those readers who are interested, "Q8" indicates 8 bits-per-pixel components, and "Q16" means 16 bits-per-pixel. The latter allows one to read or write 16-bit images without losing precision, but requires twice as much resources as Q8. Apparently Q16 is the best choice for medical or scientific images, or those with limited contrast. Otherwise, Q8 should be sufficient, and offers greater performance.

The material most likely to be read, referenced, and valued in this book, is the chapters devoted to explaining how to use ImageMagick for resizing, compressing, transforming, and drawing digital images. Most of these first-category chapters begin with a concise summary of the theory put into practice throughout the rest of the respective chapter — a wise inclusion in each case, since even the most experienced computer programmers and other users have had no instruction or experience in image theory. All of these chapters do a competent job of explaining what each ImageMagick command is used for, and then illustrating it with a straightforward example.

The most glaring deficiency in these chapters, and the book as a whole, is that far too many of the book's figures (digital images, naturally) fail to reflect what is intended to be conveyed by each figure. This is primarily because they are all in black-and-white, and in many cases do not offer the size and resolution necessary. In other words, there are many cases where the "before" and "after" images look almost identical. In the cases of color manipulation, most of those black-and-white images are of little value — occasionally laughably so.

The second-category chapters, covering ImageMagick usage with Perl, C, Ruby, and PHP, proved disappointing, primarily due to their narrow focus, and lack of tips, recommendations, and coverage of the APIs' capabilities. The details are presented in the form of a single example for each language. For instance, the Perl chapter devotes too many pages to source code listings of a Perl program written by the author, that few readers would probably download from the publisher's Web site, much less read.

Nonetheless, this book should be useful to any programmer interested in making the most of ImageMagick's capabilities, and that is not just because it is the only ImageMagick book on the market. Michael Still certainly had his work cut out for him when he agreed to document the bulk of what ImageMagick can do. It is unfortunate that the color images that he created for the book cannot be seen by the reader, and that the Windows binary versions and ImageMagick APIs, were given short shrift. We can hope that future editions of this book will be significantly strengthened, such as including color and higher resolution images where needed — even if it requires grouping them together within the book, if that reduces production costs.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that, as a smaller technical publisher, Apress is not resting on its laurels, and is not only scheduled to release an impressive variety of programming books this year, but their customer support — at least in my experience — was outstanding, as there was a problem with the shipping of this title, and they bent over backwards to make it right.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "To modify a digital image, most computer users turn to a GUI-based image processing application, such as Photoshop. However, while Photoshop and many other similar programs can process multiple images in batch mode, they still require manual usage, and thus typically are unable to process images via a command line or within a second application. Those capabilities call for a programmatic digital image manipulation tool such as ImageMagick, which is explored in a relatively new book, The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick." Read the rest of Michael's review. The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick author Michael Still pages 335 publisher Apress rating 7 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590595904 summary An introduction to using ImageMagick for digital image manipulation.

The author of this title is Michael Still, a programmer who gained experience with ImageMagick during his eight years of working on imaging applications, as well as writing articles on ImageMagick for IBM DeveloperWorks. Apress maintains a Web page for the title, where a visitor can purchase the electronic version of the book, read its table of contents, or download its source code or a sample chapter (Chapter 4 — Using Other ImageMagick Tools) in PDF format. They also have a link where readers can submit errata — and apparently be the first to do so, as there are no existing errata listed on the Web page.

The book's 335 pages are organized into a dozen chapters, following an introduction and a few other standard sections, including a forward written by ImageMagick's principal architect, Christy, who briefly explains the product's 20 years of history, development, and lack of decent documentation. That is where this book is intended to fill the gap, and Christy notes that most future questions about ImageMagick will be answered by pointing people to this book, as is also noted on ImageMagick's homepage.

The first chapter of the book explains how to install and configure ImageMagick, for several Linux distros, as well as Microsoft Windows — using the precompiled versions, or by compiling from ImageMagick's source code. The chapter is wrapped up with a brief description of ImageMagick's online help, debug output, verbose output, and version information. The next ten chapters fall into two categories: ImageMagick usage as a standalone, and from within other applications. The first category of chapters covers basic image manipulation, compression, other metadata, ImageMagick tools, artistic transformations, other image transformations, and drawing commands. The second category discusses how to utilize ImageMagick from within programs written in Perl, C, Ruby, and PHP. The 12th and final chapter is quite brief, and describes where to find online help (Web sites, blogs, mailing lists, and forums) and where to report any apparent bug in ImageMagick.

For Windows users, the first chapter may begin badly, as the author fails to explain which precompiled version the reader should select if they wish to install ImageMagick on a Windows PC. For each version, there are four flavors to choose from. But which one is right for the reader? "static" vs. "dll?" "Q16" vs. "Q8?" What are the differences? The ImageMagick Web site and FTP file listings appear to have no README file or installation help file to explain which flavor you should download. The book should provide some assistance here, but does not. The former topic, static versus DLL, is mentioned only in reference to compiling ImageMagick from source — information which the reader will probably never see, should they choose to install the precompiled binaries and get started on ImageMagick as quickly as possible.

The latter topic is not covered at all — not even in the index, where a "quantum depth" entry would be useful. For those readers who are interested, "Q8" indicates 8 bits-per-pixel components, and "Q16" means 16 bits-per-pixel. The latter allows one to read or write 16-bit images without losing precision, but requires twice as much resources as Q8. Apparently Q16 is the best choice for medical or scientific images, or those with limited contrast. Otherwise, Q8 should be sufficient, and offers greater performance.

The material most likely to be read, referenced, and valued in this book, is the chapters devoted to explaining how to use ImageMagick for resizing, compressing, transforming, and drawing digital images. Most of these first-category chapters begin with a concise summary of the theory put into practice throughout the rest of the respective chapter — a wise inclusion in each case, since even the most experienced computer programmers and other users have had no instruction or experience in image theory. All of these chapters do a competent job of explaining what each ImageMagick command is used for, and then illustrating it with a straightforward example.

The most glaring deficiency in these chapters, and the book as a whole, is that far too many of the book's figures (digital images, naturally) fail to reflect what is intended to be conveyed by each figure. This is primarily because they are all in black-and-white, and in many cases do not offer the size and resolution necessary. In other words, there are many cases where the "before" and "after" images look almost identical. In the cases of color manipulation, most of those black-and-white images are of little value — occasionally laughably so.

The second-category chapters, covering ImageMagick usage with Perl, C, Ruby, and PHP, proved disappointing, primarily due to their narrow focus, and lack of tips, recommendations, and coverage of the APIs' capabilities. The details are presented in the form of a single example for each language. For instance, the Perl chapter devotes too many pages to source code listings of a Perl program written by the author, that few readers would probably download from the publisher's Web site, much less read.

Nonetheless, this book should be useful to any programmer interested in making the most of ImageMagick's capabilities, and that is not just because it is the only ImageMagick book on the market. Michael Still certainly had his work cut out for him when he agreed to document the bulk of what ImageMagick can do. It is unfortunate that the color images that he created for the book cannot be seen by the reader, and that the Windows binary versions and ImageMagick APIs, were given short shrift. We can hope that future editions of this book will be significantly strengthened, such as including color and higher resolution images where needed — even if it requires grouping them together within the book, if that reduces production costs.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that, as a smaller technical publisher, Apress is not resting on its laurels, and is not only scheduled to release an impressive variety of programming books this year, but their customer support — at least in my experience — was outstanding, as there was a problem with the shipping of this title, and they bent over backwards to make it right.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter of PristinePlanet.com."

You can purchase The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Given the remarkable popularity of PHP for developing dynamic Web sites, as well as the ever-increasing need for security on those same sites, one would think that there would be great demand for — and comparable supply of — books that explain how to create secure sites using PHP. However, such is not the case, and even the most extensive general purpose PHP books may only devote a single chapter to this critical topic, if that much. Essential PHP Security, written by PHP expert Chris Shiflett, aims to fill the gap." Read the rest of Michael's review. Essential PHP Security author Chris Shiflett pages 109 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 7 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059600656X summary A concise introduction to PHP security principles and practices.

O'Reilly has a Web page for the book, where they offer a sample chapter (Chapter 4: Sessions and Cookies), in PDF format, as well as the book's table of contents, index, errata, and links to the online version of the book, in O'Reilly's Safari service. As of the writing of this review, the confirmed errata is reassuringly sparse, and the unconfirmed errata is nonexistent, which speaks well of the author keeping on top of reader feedback — a worthy quality not shared by all technical writers. The author also has his own Web site dedicated to the book, where he has posted a table of contents, brief reader reviews, and two free chapters in PDF format: Chapters 2 (Forms and URLs) and 4.

In the book's forward, Andi Gutmans briefly explains how increasing Internet usage has resulted in a corresponding increase in security risks, for individuals and businesses operating online. He also notes that most of the security problems related to PHP-based applications, are not the result of weaknesses in the language itself, but rather in the way that developers have used the language in creating those applications. The intent of the book is to bring together the guidelines and lessons learned for writing secure PHP code, into a single volume. He concludes by noting that most of the principles presented in the book apply equally well to other Web development languages.

The bulk of the book's material is organized into seven chapters, focusing on the following topics: forms and URLs, databases and SQL, sessions and cookies, includes, files and commands, authentication and authorization, and shared hosting. These are preceded by an introduction, which oddly is labeled as a chapter. The true chapters are succeeded by three appendices, which cover the topics of configuration directives, functions, and cryptography. A short index rounds out the volume.

In the introduction, Shiflett presents the security-related PHP features, principles, and best practices that he uses as a foundation throughout the rest of the book, when focusing on the specific PHP topics covered by all of the subsequent chapters. The two features of PHP discussed are: register globals, of which most experienced PHP developers know the dangers, and PHP's error reporting capabilities. The four principles espoused by the author for writing secure PHP systems are: safeguard redundancy, minimum privileges, clarity through simplicity, and minimizing data exposure. The heart of the book appears to be his four recommended practices: tempering usability with security, tracking input and output data, filtering all input, and escaping or encoding output to preserve its meaning.

The seven topic chapters that follow the introduction provide fairly terse coverage of how those principles and practices are put to use, when designing and implementing forms, URLs, SQL commands, sessions, cookies, etc. Each subtopic within them is discussed briefly, and illustrated with code snippets.

If anyone is well-suited to writing such a work, it is Chris Shiflett, a well-known authority on PHP security, a respected contributor to the PHP community, founder and spokesman of the PHP Security Consortium, and founder and President of Brain Bulb, a PHP consulting firm.

In light of the author's expertise, one would presume that he would make every effort to write the definitive volume on PHP security — covering every conceivable topic, including: execution of system commands, verification of user IDs and authorization, e-mail spamming via Web forms, (the related topic of) exclusion of bots, and remote procedure calls. However, Essential PHP Security does not discuss those critical matters specifically. Moreover, the topics chosen are discussed in a rather cursory manner. The code samples throughout the book are generally quite minimal, with little to no explanation as to how they work. In addition, many of the techniques presented are but variations on the theme of "filter user input." These weaknesses may be why the book clocks in at only 109 pages. In fact, the seven core chapters comprise only 71 pages, leaving the reader to wonder how PHP security could possibly be adequately plumbed by such a short treatment.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for terse writing, as wizened fans of Kernighan and Richie's C language classic can attest. In agreement would be any developer who has purchased one of the many 700+ page technical tomes that turn out to be padded with excessive margins, poorly-tested code, and pointless appendices lifted from the respective products' documentation. Perhaps Shiflett intended his book to be more a primer on PHP security, rather than a comprehensive coverage — and hence the title of the book. As such, it would primarily be of value to PHP developers unfamiliar with basic security pitfalls and defenses. Regardless, any PHP developer would be wise to begin with this book as a first step towards PHP security mastery, but even wiser if they were to follow it up with more substantial works, as well as keeping current by reading security-focused Web sites and other current publications.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter."

You can purchase Essential PHP Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "Given the remarkable popularity of PHP for developing dynamic Web sites, as well as the ever-increasing need for security on those same sites, one would think that there would be great demand for — and comparable supply of — books that explain how to create secure sites using PHP. However, such is not the case, and even the most extensive general purpose PHP books may only devote a single chapter to this critical topic, if that much. Essential PHP Security, written by PHP expert Chris Shiflett, aims to fill the gap." Read the rest of Michael's review. Essential PHP Security author Chris Shiflett pages 109 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 7 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059600656X summary A concise introduction to PHP security principles and practices.

O'Reilly has a Web page for the book, where they offer a sample chapter (Chapter 4: Sessions and Cookies), in PDF format, as well as the book's table of contents, index, errata, and links to the online version of the book, in O'Reilly's Safari service. As of the writing of this review, the confirmed errata is reassuringly sparse, and the unconfirmed errata is nonexistent, which speaks well of the author keeping on top of reader feedback — a worthy quality not shared by all technical writers. The author also has his own Web site dedicated to the book, where he has posted a table of contents, brief reader reviews, and two free chapters in PDF format: Chapters 2 (Forms and URLs) and 4.

In the book's forward, Andi Gutmans briefly explains how increasing Internet usage has resulted in a corresponding increase in security risks, for individuals and businesses operating online. He also notes that most of the security problems related to PHP-based applications, are not the result of weaknesses in the language itself, but rather in the way that developers have used the language in creating those applications. The intent of the book is to bring together the guidelines and lessons learned for writing secure PHP code, into a single volume. He concludes by noting that most of the principles presented in the book apply equally well to other Web development languages.

The bulk of the book's material is organized into seven chapters, focusing on the following topics: forms and URLs, databases and SQL, sessions and cookies, includes, files and commands, authentication and authorization, and shared hosting. These are preceded by an introduction, which oddly is labeled as a chapter. The true chapters are succeeded by three appendices, which cover the topics of configuration directives, functions, and cryptography. A short index rounds out the volume.

In the introduction, Shiflett presents the security-related PHP features, principles, and best practices that he uses as a foundation throughout the rest of the book, when focusing on the specific PHP topics covered by all of the subsequent chapters. The two features of PHP discussed are: register globals, of which most experienced PHP developers know the dangers, and PHP's error reporting capabilities. The four principles espoused by the author for writing secure PHP systems are: safeguard redundancy, minimum privileges, clarity through simplicity, and minimizing data exposure. The heart of the book appears to be his four recommended practices: tempering usability with security, tracking input and output data, filtering all input, and escaping or encoding output to preserve its meaning.

The seven topic chapters that follow the introduction provide fairly terse coverage of how those principles and practices are put to use, when designing and implementing forms, URLs, SQL commands, sessions, cookies, etc. Each subtopic within them is discussed briefly, and illustrated with code snippets.

If anyone is well-suited to writing such a work, it is Chris Shiflett, a well-known authority on PHP security, a respected contributor to the PHP community, founder and spokesman of the PHP Security Consortium, and founder and President of Brain Bulb, a PHP consulting firm.

In light of the author's expertise, one would presume that he would make every effort to write the definitive volume on PHP security — covering every conceivable topic, including: execution of system commands, verification of user IDs and authorization, e-mail spamming via Web forms, (the related topic of) exclusion of bots, and remote procedure calls. However, Essential PHP Security does not discuss those critical matters specifically. Moreover, the topics chosen are discussed in a rather cursory manner. The code samples throughout the book are generally quite minimal, with little to no explanation as to how they work. In addition, many of the techniques presented are but variations on the theme of "filter user input." These weaknesses may be why the book clocks in at only 109 pages. In fact, the seven core chapters comprise only 71 pages, leaving the reader to wonder how PHP security could possibly be adequately plumbed by such a short treatment.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for terse writing, as wizened fans of Kernighan and Richie's C language classic can attest. In agreement would be any developer who has purchased one of the many 700+ page technical tomes that turn out to be padded with excessive margins, poorly-tested code, and pointless appendices lifted from the respective products' documentation. Perhaps Shiflett intended his book to be more a primer on PHP security, rather than a comprehensive coverage — and hence the title of the book. As such, it would primarily be of value to PHP developers unfamiliar with basic security pitfalls and defenses. Regardless, any PHP developer would be wise to begin with this book as a first step towards PHP security mastery, but even wiser if they were to follow it up with more substantial works, as well as keeping current by reading security-focused Web sites and other current publications.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter."

You can purchase Essential PHP Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "The typical computer program has more bugs than there are ants at a picnic -- except ants are usually easier to find. Programs written in Perl are no exception, because the compactness of the language does not make any existent bugs easier to spot; they can simply be packed into fewer lines of code. To help remedy this problem, Richard Foley and Andy Lester, two seasoned Perl programmers, offer a new book, Pro Perl Debugging: From Professional to Expert." Read the rest of Michael's review. Pro Perl Debugging: From Professional to Expert author Richard Foley with Andy Lester pages 269 publisher Apress rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590594541 summary A comprehensive tutorial and reference for the Perl debugger

This title was published in hardcover in March 2005 by Apress, a relatively new member of the technical publishing world. The publisher has a Web page for the book that includes links to all of the source code in a Zip file, the table of contents in PDF format, and a form for submitting errata. The book comprises 269 pages, the majority of which are organized into 16 chapters: Introduction (not to be confused with the true Introduction immediately preceding it), Inspecting Variables and Getting Help, Controlling Program Execution, Debugging a Simple Command Line Program, Tracing Execution, Debugging Modules, Debugging Object-Oriented Perl, Using the Debugger As a Shell, Debugging a CGI Program, Perl Threads and Forked Processes, Debugging Regular Expressions, Debugger Customization, Optimization and Performance Hints and Tips, Command Line and GUI Debuggers, Comprehensive Command Reference, Book References and URLs.

For programmers who wish to learn how to fully utilize Perl's debugger, what options are open to them? A terse summary of the debugger's commands are always close by, within the debugger itself. Those Perl coders who have yet to try the built-in Perl debugger, really owe it to themselves to give it a whirl. In most cases, it is superior to embedding lots of "print" statements in your scripts, and then wading through the results. Simply include perl.exe's -d flag on the system command line, and you should be put right into the debugger, and see the debugger's "DB<1>" command prompt -- the "1" meaning that it is ready for your first command. To display the aforementioned command summary, simply enter "h", or "|h" to see the output one screen-ful at a time, which you will probably want to do unless your system window can show all of the dozens of lines at once. The command summary is best used as a quick reference, and naturally cannot be expected to serve as any sort of tutorial. Yet it has its use, and for that, it's fine.

Most Perl books devote at least some space to explaining the basics of firing up and using Perl's debugger. The (in)famous "camel book," Larry Wall's Programming Perl, has a chapter on the debugger. It covers breakpoints, running, stepping, tracing, displaying code, commands, debugger customization, debugger options, unattended execution, creating your own debugger, and performance profiling. Aside from that last topic, the chapter is mostly an expansion of the command summary mentioned earlier. It is sparse on examples, and does not cover any advanced topics, such as using the debugger in the context of forking, threads, and POE, as well as the debugger's special capabilities for regular expressions, CGI programs, and shelling out.

The advanced topics are where Pro Perl Debugging really shines in relation to the coverage that I have seen in any other book, partly because the authors have the space to thoroughly explore those topics in depth, and to provide much more meaty examples, with adequately illustrative sample code. Even for the more complex topics, the writing is clear, and the examples are worthwhile.

The authors clearly intend for the book to serve as both a comprehensive tutorial and a reference for the Perl debugger. In both respects, they succeed admirably. But the practical value of their accomplishment could be called into question by any programmer who has grown tired of the limitations of the Perl debugger, and has switched over to any Perl-capable standalone GUI debugger or integrated development environment (IDE). More specifically, watching a variable change value, while stepping through the lines of a Perl script using the debugger, requires that the programmer manually or programmatically echo that variable's value, by issuing a print command ("p") followed by the variable name, one way or another. This process quickly becomes tedious when multiple variables need to be watched, because each individual variable must be printed, one at a time. Admittedly, previously entered print statements can be recalled by using the up-arrow key, but only if the particular command has not been pushed out of the debugger's limited storage. This usually becomes even more frustrating when trying to print the values of indexed arrays, hashes, and nested arrays and other structures. There are workarounds, but none are pretty, and even the most promising techniques still seem to require excessive focusing on the debugger commands themselves, drawing attention away from the code being debugged.

As a result, some disheartened Perl coders eventually switch back to embedding "print" statements in their code. Fortunately, there is a better alternative, in the form of IDEs, which can automatically report the changing values of a large set of variables, none of which need to be typed in, owing to the drag-and-drop capabilities of most IDEs. There are many IDEs available, including freeware and open source offerings. Most if not all of them support advanced editing, syntax highlighting and verification, visual breakpoints, and other much-appreciated capabilities. Even if they were to lack all of these features, and only have the advantage of easily and dynamically displaying the current values of variables, then they would be much more pleasant to use than the built-in Perl debugger. This is especially true in the case of nested structures, which can be expanded with a mouse click within most IDEs. All of this being said, it should be noted that the authors include a chapter that briefly touches upon the most well-known Perl GUI debuggers -- but at only seven pages in length, the chosen applications get only a cursory treatment, highlighting their major features.

Nonetheless, given the intended purpose of Pro Perl Debugging, and its target audience, the book cannot be faulted for its contents nor its approach to presenting the material. Anyone looking for a detailed and competent explication of the native Perl debugger, would likely not be able to find a more thorough treatment anywhere else.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter."

You can purchase Pro Perl Debugging from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "The typical computer program has more bugs than there are ants at a picnic -- except ants are usually easier to find. Programs written in Perl are no exception, because the compactness of the language does not make any existent bugs easier to spot; they can simply be packed into fewer lines of code. To help remedy this problem, Richard Foley and Andy Lester, two seasoned Perl programmers, offer a new book, Pro Perl Debugging: From Professional to Expert." Read the rest of Michael's review. Pro Perl Debugging: From Professional to Expert author Richard Foley with Andy Lester pages 269 publisher Apress rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1590594541 summary A comprehensive tutorial and reference for the Perl debugger

This title was published in hardcover in March 2005 by Apress, a relatively new member of the technical publishing world. The publisher has a Web page for the book that includes links to all of the source code in a Zip file, the table of contents in PDF format, and a form for submitting errata. The book comprises 269 pages, the majority of which are organized into 16 chapters: Introduction (not to be confused with the true Introduction immediately preceding it), Inspecting Variables and Getting Help, Controlling Program Execution, Debugging a Simple Command Line Program, Tracing Execution, Debugging Modules, Debugging Object-Oriented Perl, Using the Debugger As a Shell, Debugging a CGI Program, Perl Threads and Forked Processes, Debugging Regular Expressions, Debugger Customization, Optimization and Performance Hints and Tips, Command Line and GUI Debuggers, Comprehensive Command Reference, Book References and URLs.

For programmers who wish to learn how to fully utilize Perl's debugger, what options are open to them? A terse summary of the debugger's commands are always close by, within the debugger itself. Those Perl coders who have yet to try the built-in Perl debugger, really owe it to themselves to give it a whirl. In most cases, it is superior to embedding lots of "print" statements in your scripts, and then wading through the results. Simply include perl.exe's -d flag on the system command line, and you should be put right into the debugger, and see the debugger's "DB<1>" command prompt -- the "1" meaning that it is ready for your first command. To display the aforementioned command summary, simply enter "h", or "|h" to see the output one screen-ful at a time, which you will probably want to do unless your system window can show all of the dozens of lines at once. The command summary is best used as a quick reference, and naturally cannot be expected to serve as any sort of tutorial. Yet it has its use, and for that, it's fine.

Most Perl books devote at least some space to explaining the basics of firing up and using Perl's debugger. The (in)famous "camel book," Larry Wall's Programming Perl, has a chapter on the debugger. It covers breakpoints, running, stepping, tracing, displaying code, commands, debugger customization, debugger options, unattended execution, creating your own debugger, and performance profiling. Aside from that last topic, the chapter is mostly an expansion of the command summary mentioned earlier. It is sparse on examples, and does not cover any advanced topics, such as using the debugger in the context of forking, threads, and POE, as well as the debugger's special capabilities for regular expressions, CGI programs, and shelling out.

The advanced topics are where Pro Perl Debugging really shines in relation to the coverage that I have seen in any other book, partly because the authors have the space to thoroughly explore those topics in depth, and to provide much more meaty examples, with adequately illustrative sample code. Even for the more complex topics, the writing is clear, and the examples are worthwhile.

The authors clearly intend for the book to serve as both a comprehensive tutorial and a reference for the Perl debugger. In both respects, they succeed admirably. But the practical value of their accomplishment could be called into question by any programmer who has grown tired of the limitations of the Perl debugger, and has switched over to any Perl-capable standalone GUI debugger or integrated development environment (IDE). More specifically, watching a variable change value, while stepping through the lines of a Perl script using the debugger, requires that the programmer manually or programmatically echo that variable's value, by issuing a print command ("p") followed by the variable name, one way or another. This process quickly becomes tedious when multiple variables need to be watched, because each individual variable must be printed, one at a time. Admittedly, previously entered print statements can be recalled by using the up-arrow key, but only if the particular command has not been pushed out of the debugger's limited storage. This usually becomes even more frustrating when trying to print the values of indexed arrays, hashes, and nested arrays and other structures. There are workarounds, but none are pretty, and even the most promising techniques still seem to require excessive focusing on the debugger commands themselves, drawing attention away from the code being debugged.

As a result, some disheartened Perl coders eventually switch back to embedding "print" statements in their code. Fortunately, there is a better alternative, in the form of IDEs, which can automatically report the changing values of a large set of variables, none of which need to be typed in, owing to the drag-and-drop capabilities of most IDEs. There are many IDEs available, including freeware and open source offerings. Most if not all of them support advanced editing, syntax highlighting and verification, visual breakpoints, and other much-appreciated capabilities. Even if they were to lack all of these features, and only have the advantage of easily and dynamically displaying the current values of variables, then they would be much more pleasant to use than the built-in Perl debugger. This is especially true in the case of nested structures, which can be expanded with a mouse click within most IDEs. All of this being said, it should be noted that the authors include a chapter that briefly touches upon the most well-known Perl GUI debuggers -- but at only seven pages in length, the chosen applications get only a cursory treatment, highlighting their major features.

Nonetheless, given the intended purpose of Pro Perl Debugging, and its target audience, the book cannot be faulted for its contents nor its approach to presenting the material. Anyone looking for a detailed and competent explication of the native Perl debugger, would likely not be able to find a more thorough treatment anywhere else.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter."

You can purchase Pro Perl Debugging from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "A professional programmer could at any time be tasked with developing a nontrivial application using a language or Web technology with which he or she is unfamiliar. A common response is to quickly scan code snippets in Internet newsgroups and online tutorials, copy and paste code that looks applicable to the task at hand, and then lose valuable time trying to make it all work and control what was created -- not unlike Dr. Frankenstein's experience. A smarter approach is to learn the language basics in sequence as rapidly as possible, not getting bogged down in excessive sample code. For developers seeking to learn PHP using the latter approach, Steven Holzner's Spring Into PHP 5, published by Addison-Wesley, would be an excellent choice." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. Spring Into PHP 5 author Steven Holzner pages 340 publisher Addison-Wesley rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0131498622 summary A comprehensive and no-nonsense primer on the basics of PHP.

This title is another entry in Addison-Wesley's promising "Spring Into" series, which, as suggested by the name, is aimed at developers who want to jump into a new technology and get up to speed as quickly as possible, but without missing any of the essentials. In the case of Holzner's PHP book, this goal is pursued by presenting the information in so-called "chunks," with each spanning just a few pages. Every chunk attempts to cover only one or a few related ideas, and is designed to build upon earlier chunks. The bulk of the explanation takes the form of code samples, which fortunately are short enough in length and clear enough in composition to be easily digestible. This is in stark contrast to far too many other programming books on the market, whose code samples can span multiple pages, making it difficult for the reader to discern all of the ideas that the author is trying to get across -- especially when the reader has to flip back and forth between pages. Even worse is how some authors (such as Deitel and Deitel) use lengthy code listings -- sometimes even complete applications -- to demonstrate many ideas at once, which can be quite confusing, especially for the newbie reading about a challenging language for the first time. As Holzner notes in his preface, his book is example-oriented, with dozens of tested code samples. But none are overwhelming.

Spring Into PHP 5 was published on 12 April 2005. It is organized into nine chapters, covering a range of topics: PHP essentials; operators and flow control; strings and arrays; functions; PHP in HTML pages; Web forms and input validation; object-oriented programming and file handling; PHP and databases; cookies, user sessions, FTP, e-mail, and hit counters. The book has two appendices. The first one, on PHP language elements, is remarkably complete, considering that it only fills 18 pages. Owners of the book will likely find themselves turning to this material quite frequently. The second appendix lists the most commonly used functions in PHP, particularly those dealing with arrays, strings, and files. These two appendices combined go a long way to making this book more than an approachable primer -- it could serve as a reference book for the language for any reader not required to dig into the more obscure intricacies of PHP. Readers with those needs will have to use more detailed sources, such as the online PHP Manual.

Each one of Holzner's chapters explains the core concepts, using the bite-sized chunks mentioned earlier. This approach is somewhat similar to the "recipes" found in many books published by O'Reilly Media, and it works well here for introducing a computer language. Holzner's writing style is clear yet never condescending, and concise yet never cryptic. The intended reader only really needs an understanding of simple HTML and how to edit text files, to make this book worthwhile and usable. The book is meaty with information, and yet not too lengthy. This is a refreshing change of pace from countless other computer language books that are bloated with redundant sample code and overly wide margins, apparently in an attempt to entice the consumer with maximum page count per dollar.

Some programming books try to move the novice along at too rapid a pace, which can get quite discouraging if and when the reader is unable to follow the discussion, and particularly if trying to follow the author in building a working example. But a far more common mistake among programming books, is to drag out the process with humongous code listings or redundant verbiage (such as following the senseless rule of telling the reader something three times -- a technique that makes far more sense for speechwriting). Holzner sets and maintains an excellent pace, partly by keeping the code snippets reasonably sized, and partly through his modular approach of presenting ideas in chunks.

The physical book itself is well made and attractive, with a readable font face and size, and intelligent use of bolding to highlight those lines of code upon which the reader should focus. My only complaint in terms of the presentation, is that the gray background used for the code samples could be lightened up a bit, to make the text itself stand out more, especially the bold text. All of the screenshots are in black-and-white, which works just fine, as there would be no value in using color in the majority of the sample Web pages.

The author does an excellent job of explaining and illustrating all of the most commonly used and needed elements of the language. But he provides little guidance as to when a particular technique or approach should be used over another. For instance, when explaining how the programmer can use PHP to connect to a MySQL database, the author presents two alternatives -- direct layer and Pear::DB -- but no recommendations as to the choice of one over the other. On the other hand, one might argue that to include recommendations of techniques, as well as language best practices, would require the book to be much longer than it is, which would detract from the book's goal of getting a programmer up to speed on PHP in an efficient manner. The serious programmer who wishes to take PHP to the next level, can be expected to read more advanced books, to learn from expert PHP developers posting in online newsgroups, and to learn from experience as the programmer creates his or her own applications.

Another potential point of criticism could be that the book does not adequately explain how to use PHP with the various available database systems, only covering MySQL (the industry's favorite for use with PHP). But the database chapter, number 8, provides just enough information for the beginner to get started and to try out the basics. For simple database needs, the material in that chapter might be sufficient. Yet for more extensive MySQL usage, including installation and administration, other resources will need to be consulted. This book is clearly not intended to be one of those PHP + MySQL combo books that have proven so popular during the past few years.

The publisher's Web site for the book does not appear to have any collection of errata. Here are some that I found: On page 6, in the NOTE, "scripts can be used" should read "scripts cannot be used." On page 20, "#/ message to the user" should read "# message to the user." On page 49, in Table 2-4, in the last line, the formatting is partly wrong. Examples 3-1 through 4-14 contain incorrect indentation. On page 158, the last line in the $_FILES['userfile'] values is missing $_FILES['userfile']['error']. In Examples 5-19 and 5-20, the <head> and <h1> tags are missing ": Take 1." On page 169, the formatting of Example 6-2 is inconsistent with the others.

Aside from the errata, there were some other weaknesses -- none of them serious: The chapter summaries are useless, like in most other technical books, as there's not enough details to be instructive, and more details would make them even more redundant and space-consuming. On page 176, in Figure 6-6's caption, "Navigating" should be "Redirected." On page 197, the discussion of HTTP authentication is too brief to enable the typical reader to implement it. For instance, there is no mention of where to set $_SERVER[ 'PHP_AUTH_USER' ] to make it work. Chapter 7, on object-oriented programming and file handling, should be split into two chapters. Combining them makes no sense, and the author does not even transition from the first topic to the second.

Like others in the "Spring Into" series, this title is reasonably priced, at only $29.99 list for over 300 pages of quality material. The publisher, Addison-Wesley, has a page on their Web site devoted to the book, which includes a book description, a table of contents, an index, source code from the book, and a link for downloading a sample chapter (in PDF format), namely, Chapter 3, which covers strings and arrays. The site also has a link to a bonus chapter (also in PDF) that explains how to draw graphics interactively on a Web server and then send them back to the browser. Oddly enough, the page's title is "Spring Into PHP 5 - $20.99," but there's no indication as to how to get the book for only $20.99. That could simply be a typo. But there is a link to purchase the book online for $26.99. For those looking to spring into Web server-side development in general, or PHP in particular, it would be money well spent.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter for PristinePlanet.com. You can purchase Spring Into PHP 5 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "A professional programmer could at any time be tasked with developing a nontrivial application using a language or Web technology with which he or she is unfamiliar. A common response is to quickly scan code snippets in Internet newsgroups and online tutorials, copy and paste code that looks applicable to the task at hand, and then lose valuable time trying to make it all work and control what was created -- not unlike Dr. Frankenstein's experience. A smarter approach is to learn the language basics in sequence as rapidly as possible, not getting bogged down in excessive sample code. For developers seeking to learn PHP using the latter approach, Steven Holzner's Spring Into PHP 5, published by Addison-Wesley, would be an excellent choice." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. Spring Into PHP 5 author Steven Holzner pages 340 publisher Addison-Wesley rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0131498622 summary A comprehensive and no-nonsense primer on the basics of PHP.

This title is another entry in Addison-Wesley's promising "Spring Into" series, which, as suggested by the name, is aimed at developers who want to jump into a new technology and get up to speed as quickly as possible, but without missing any of the essentials. In the case of Holzner's PHP book, this goal is pursued by presenting the information in so-called "chunks," with each spanning just a few pages. Every chunk attempts to cover only one or a few related ideas, and is designed to build upon earlier chunks. The bulk of the explanation takes the form of code samples, which fortunately are short enough in length and clear enough in composition to be easily digestible. This is in stark contrast to far too many other programming books on the market, whose code samples can span multiple pages, making it difficult for the reader to discern all of the ideas that the author is trying to get across -- especially when the reader has to flip back and forth between pages. Even worse is how some authors (such as Deitel and Deitel) use lengthy code listings -- sometimes even complete applications -- to demonstrate many ideas at once, which can be quite confusing, especially for the newbie reading about a challenging language for the first time. As Holzner notes in his preface, his book is example-oriented, with dozens of tested code samples. But none are overwhelming.

Spring Into PHP 5 was published on 12 April 2005. It is organized into nine chapters, covering a range of topics: PHP essentials; operators and flow control; strings and arrays; functions; PHP in HTML pages; Web forms and input validation; object-oriented programming and file handling; PHP and databases; cookies, user sessions, FTP, e-mail, and hit counters. The book has two appendices. The first one, on PHP language elements, is remarkably complete, considering that it only fills 18 pages. Owners of the book will likely find themselves turning to this material quite frequently. The second appendix lists the most commonly used functions in PHP, particularly those dealing with arrays, strings, and files. These two appendices combined go a long way to making this book more than an approachable primer -- it could serve as a reference book for the language for any reader not required to dig into the more obscure intricacies of PHP. Readers with those needs will have to use more detailed sources, such as the online PHP Manual.

Each one of Holzner's chapters explains the core concepts, using the bite-sized chunks mentioned earlier. This approach is somewhat similar to the "recipes" found in many books published by O'Reilly Media, and it works well here for introducing a computer language. Holzner's writing style is clear yet never condescending, and concise yet never cryptic. The intended reader only really needs an understanding of simple HTML and how to edit text files, to make this book worthwhile and usable. The book is meaty with information, and yet not too lengthy. This is a refreshing change of pace from countless other computer language books that are bloated with redundant sample code and overly wide margins, apparently in an attempt to entice the consumer with maximum page count per dollar.

Some programming books try to move the novice along at too rapid a pace, which can get quite discouraging if and when the reader is unable to follow the discussion, and particularly if trying to follow the author in building a working example. But a far more common mistake among programming books, is to drag out the process with humongous code listings or redundant verbiage (such as following the senseless rule of telling the reader something three times -- a technique that makes far more sense for speechwriting). Holzner sets and maintains an excellent pace, partly by keeping the code snippets reasonably sized, and partly through his modular approach of presenting ideas in chunks.

The physical book itself is well made and attractive, with a readable font face and size, and intelligent use of bolding to highlight those lines of code upon which the reader should focus. My only complaint in terms of the presentation, is that the gray background used for the code samples could be lightened up a bit, to make the text itself stand out more, especially the bold text. All of the screenshots are in black-and-white, which works just fine, as there would be no value in using color in the majority of the sample Web pages.

The author does an excellent job of explaining and illustrating all of the most commonly used and needed elements of the language. But he provides little guidance as to when a particular technique or approach should be used over another. For instance, when explaining how the programmer can use PHP to connect to a MySQL database, the author presents two alternatives -- direct layer and Pear::DB -- but no recommendations as to the choice of one over the other. On the other hand, one might argue that to include recommendations of techniques, as well as language best practices, would require the book to be much longer than it is, which would detract from the book's goal of getting a programmer up to speed on PHP in an efficient manner. The serious programmer who wishes to take PHP to the next level, can be expected to read more advanced books, to learn from expert PHP developers posting in online newsgroups, and to learn from experience as the programmer creates his or her own applications.

Another potential point of criticism could be that the book does not adequately explain how to use PHP with the various available database systems, only covering MySQL (the industry's favorite for use with PHP). But the database chapter, number 8, provides just enough information for the beginner to get started and to try out the basics. For simple database needs, the material in that chapter might be sufficient. Yet for more extensive MySQL usage, including installation and administration, other resources will need to be consulted. This book is clearly not intended to be one of those PHP + MySQL combo books that have proven so popular during the past few years.

The publisher's Web site for the book does not appear to have any collection of errata. Here are some that I found: On page 6, in the NOTE, "scripts can be used" should read "scripts cannot be used." On page 20, "#/ message to the user" should read "# message to the user." On page 49, in Table 2-4, in the last line, the formatting is partly wrong. Examples 3-1 through 4-14 contain incorrect indentation. On page 158, the last line in the $_FILES['userfile'] values is missing $_FILES['userfile']['error']. In Examples 5-19 and 5-20, the <head> and <h1> tags are missing ": Take 1." On page 169, the formatting of Example 6-2 is inconsistent with the others.

Aside from the errata, there were some other weaknesses -- none of them serious: The chapter summaries are useless, like in most other technical books, as there's not enough details to be instructive, and more details would make them even more redundant and space-consuming. On page 176, in Figure 6-6's caption, "Navigating" should be "Redirected." On page 197, the discussion of HTTP authentication is too brief to enable the typical reader to implement it. For instance, there is no mention of where to set $_SERVER[ 'PHP_AUTH_USER' ] to make it work. Chapter 7, on object-oriented programming and file handling, should be split into two chapters. Combining them makes no sense, and the author does not even transition from the first topic to the second.

Like others in the "Spring Into" series, this title is reasonably priced, at only $29.99 list for over 300 pages of quality material. The publisher, Addison-Wesley, has a page on their Web site devoted to the book, which includes a book description, a table of contents, an index, source code from the book, and a link for downloading a sample chapter (in PDF format), namely, Chapter 3, which covers strings and arrays. The site also has a link to a bonus chapter (also in PDF) that explains how to draw graphics interactively on a Web server and then send them back to the browser. Oddly enough, the page's title is "Spring Into PHP 5 - $20.99," but there's no indication as to how to get the book for only $20.99. That could simply be a typo. But there is a link to purchase the book online for $26.99. For those looking to spring into Web server-side development in general, or PHP in particular, it would be money well spent.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter for PristinePlanet.com. You can purchase Spring Into PHP 5 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "When it comes to creating a dynamic Web site with data store capabilities, the site developer can choose from many technologies, including PHP and MySQL. The combination of the two is rapidly emerging as a favorite, partly because they work well together, and partly because they are both available under open-source licenses. As a result, technical book publishers are cranking out a growing number of high-priced tomes that try to cover all of the details of either technology, or both. But for the developer just getting started in either one, there is a new title that could prove more accessible: Vikram Vaswani's How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL, published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL author Vikram Vaswani pages 381 publisher McGraw-Hill/Osborne rating 7 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0072257954 summary A tutorial on PHP and MySQL, geared to the new developer.

The publisher has a page on their Web site devoted to the book; for some reason, it lists the book as containing 400 pages, but my copy has 381. The page also has links to a table of contents and a sample chapter, namely the first one. For those readers with very slow Internet access or unstable Adobe Acrobat plug-ins installed, be aware that the sample chapter -- and even the table of contents -- are offered only as PDFs, but the two links give no warning.

Most technical publishers, for every one of their books, wisely have links to the errata and sample code, right there on each book's Web page. This is the best approach, because when readers are having difficulty getting a book's examples to work correctly, they want to be able to quickly find and download the most up-to-date sample code, as well as check the errata page for any bugs in the printed code. Unfortunately, McGraw-Hill/Osborne has their links to those two types of information in an easily-overlooked part of a menubar, using small black text on a blue background. The links are near the upper left-hand corner, and outside the content section of the Web page, where the typical reader would be seeking fruitlessly for them.

The companion Web site for the book is hosted by Vaswani's software consulting firm, Melonfire. The site has the book's table of contents (in HTML), a link to chapter 1 in PDF, a profile of the author, three full-length case studies, a feedback form, and an extensive collection of links to PHP and MySQL reference material, discussion lists, articles, and tutorials. At the end of the Introduction in the book, the author invites the reader to use that companion site for connecting with other PHP users, and sharing their thoughts on PHP and MySQL development. The site itself has no such forum, so the author probably meant the discussion lists.

The companion site also has a link to download a Zip file containing all of the sample applications from the book -- from chapters 7, 12, and 16 -- comprising nine PHP scripts, an SQL file, and a data file. The code snippets themselves do not appear to be included in the download. This shouldn't pose a difficulty for the typical reader, since few of the code snippets are long. Besides, typing them in on one's computer can help to reinforce the language syntax that one is learning, as well as decent code formatting (valuable for newbies).

The book is organized into four parts.The first of these presents the basics of PHP and MySQL, including the history and features of both technologies, as well as how to install them on Unix and Windows systems, verify the integrity of the installations, and make some critical security and configuration changes, such as changing passwords. Parts II and III cover the basics of PHP and MySQL, respectively. The fourth and final part describes how to use the two together. To that end, every chapter contains snippets of code to illustrate the ideas being described. In addition, each section is wrapped up and illustrated with a sample application. For PHP, the author shows how to build a session-based shopping cart. For MySQL, he presents a simple order-tracking system. For using PHP and MySQL together, he shows a news-publishing system.

Despite its title, the book clearly does not tell the reader how to do everything with PHP and MySQL. As the author notes in the Introduction, the book is not designed to be a complete reference for either technology, but instead intended as a tutorial for Web developers who are interested in learning how to do server-side scripting in combination with a database management system. Vaswani states that he does not assume prior knowledge of programming or database fundamentals, and that these basic concepts will be taught by example, using tutorials and realistic examples. I suspect a reader not familiar with HTML, however, could be easily baffled by the book. On the other hand, most if not all developers reading a book on PHP or MySQL are likely to already know HTML well enough to understand the output of PHP-enhanced Web pages.

One strength that this book has over many similar ones is that the author explains up front how to install PHP and MySQL, rather than relegating these topics to an appendix, or skipping them entirely. This is critical, because many programmers will find that the most challenging aspects of getting started with PHP and MySQL, are simply getting them installed and working, along with a Web server, such as Apache -- and not coding the applications themselves.

Another welcome aspect of the book is the author's enthusiasm for the technologies -- although characterizing MySQL as "quite friendly" (page 150) is a stretch. Furthermore, his explanations are clear and concise. In addition, Vaswani makes no pretense that his book has all the answers; he frequently refers the reader to URLs in the online manuals of the products, for more details. In addition, he does a nice job of illustrating the advantages of normalized database tables, and later explaining how to format query output -- an important topic omitted in many similar books.

Yet, like all books, this one is not perfect. There are a number of errors or pitfalls in the book that could confuse the reader. They range from incomplete explanations of what a user will see when running particular commands, to the sort of errata one finds in all technical books. I found over two dozen in total (there may be more). In the interests of keeping this Slashdot version of the book review close to the recommended length, I won't list all of the problems here, but will instead refer the reader to a longer version of this book review, if they are interested in those details.

Aside from its many minor flaws, I recommend this title to any programmer who wants to learn the basics of PHP and MySQL. Even though the publisher could improve their production quality, choice of binding, and Web page, the author has done a good job of clearly presenting the major points. Future editions could incorporate fixes to the errors noted in the longer version of this review, as well as better explain to the neophyte how to test/debug the code snippets. Nonetheless, the intended reader would be well served by this particular book.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. You can purchase How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "When it comes to creating a dynamic Web site with data store capabilities, the site developer can choose from many technologies, including PHP and MySQL. The combination of the two is rapidly emerging as a favorite, partly because they work well together, and partly because they are both available under open-source licenses. As a result, technical book publishers are cranking out a growing number of high-priced tomes that try to cover all of the details of either technology, or both. But for the developer just getting started in either one, there is a new title that could prove more accessible: Vikram Vaswani's How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL, published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL author Vikram Vaswani pages 381 publisher McGraw-Hill/Osborne rating 7 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 0072257954 summary A tutorial on PHP and MySQL, geared to the new developer.

The publisher has a page on their Web site devoted to the book; for some reason, it lists the book as containing 400 pages, but my copy has 381. The page also has links to a table of contents and a sample chapter, namely the first one. For those readers with very slow Internet access or unstable Adobe Acrobat plug-ins installed, be aware that the sample chapter -- and even the table of contents -- are offered only as PDFs, but the two links give no warning.

Most technical publishers, for every one of their books, wisely have links to the errata and sample code, right there on each book's Web page. This is the best approach, because when readers are having difficulty getting a book's examples to work correctly, they want to be able to quickly find and download the most up-to-date sample code, as well as check the errata page for any bugs in the printed code. Unfortunately, McGraw-Hill/Osborne has their links to those two types of information in an easily-overlooked part of a menubar, using small black text on a blue background. The links are near the upper left-hand corner, and outside the content section of the Web page, where the typical reader would be seeking fruitlessly for them.

The companion Web site for the book is hosted by Vaswani's software consulting firm, Melonfire. The site has the book's table of contents (in HTML), a link to chapter 1 in PDF, a profile of the author, three full-length case studies, a feedback form, and an extensive collection of links to PHP and MySQL reference material, discussion lists, articles, and tutorials. At the end of the Introduction in the book, the author invites the reader to use that companion site for connecting with other PHP users, and sharing their thoughts on PHP and MySQL development. The site itself has no such forum, so the author probably meant the discussion lists.

The companion site also has a link to download a Zip file containing all of the sample applications from the book -- from chapters 7, 12, and 16 -- comprising nine PHP scripts, an SQL file, and a data file. The code snippets themselves do not appear to be included in the download. This shouldn't pose a difficulty for the typical reader, since few of the code snippets are long. Besides, typing them in on one's computer can help to reinforce the language syntax that one is learning, as well as decent code formatting (valuable for newbies).

The book is organized into four parts.The first of these presents the basics of PHP and MySQL, including the history and features of both technologies, as well as how to install them on Unix and Windows systems, verify the integrity of the installations, and make some critical security and configuration changes, such as changing passwords. Parts II and III cover the basics of PHP and MySQL, respectively. The fourth and final part describes how to use the two together. To that end, every chapter contains snippets of code to illustrate the ideas being described. In addition, each section is wrapped up and illustrated with a sample application. For PHP, the author shows how to build a session-based shopping cart. For MySQL, he presents a simple order-tracking system. For using PHP and MySQL together, he shows a news-publishing system.

Despite its title, the book clearly does not tell the reader how to do everything with PHP and MySQL. As the author notes in the Introduction, the book is not designed to be a complete reference for either technology, but instead intended as a tutorial for Web developers who are interested in learning how to do server-side scripting in combination with a database management system. Vaswani states that he does not assume prior knowledge of programming or database fundamentals, and that these basic concepts will be taught by example, using tutorials and realistic examples. I suspect a reader not familiar with HTML, however, could be easily baffled by the book. On the other hand, most if not all developers reading a book on PHP or MySQL are likely to already know HTML well enough to understand the output of PHP-enhanced Web pages.

One strength that this book has over many similar ones is that the author explains up front how to install PHP and MySQL, rather than relegating these topics to an appendix, or skipping them entirely. This is critical, because many programmers will find that the most challenging aspects of getting started with PHP and MySQL, are simply getting them installed and working, along with a Web server, such as Apache -- and not coding the applications themselves.

Another welcome aspect of the book is the author's enthusiasm for the technologies -- although characterizing MySQL as "quite friendly" (page 150) is a stretch. Furthermore, his explanations are clear and concise. In addition, Vaswani makes no pretense that his book has all the answers; he frequently refers the reader to URLs in the online manuals of the products, for more details. In addition, he does a nice job of illustrating the advantages of normalized database tables, and later explaining how to format query output -- an important topic omitted in many similar books.

Yet, like all books, this one is not perfect. There are a number of errors or pitfalls in the book that could confuse the reader. They range from incomplete explanations of what a user will see when running particular commands, to the sort of errata one finds in all technical books. I found over two dozen in total (there may be more). In the interests of keeping this Slashdot version of the book review close to the recommended length, I won't list all of the problems here, but will instead refer the reader to a longer version of this book review, if they are interested in those details.

Aside from its many minor flaws, I recommend this title to any programmer who wants to learn the basics of PHP and MySQL. Even though the publisher could improve their production quality, choice of binding, and Web page, the author has done a good job of clearly presenting the major points. Future editions could incorporate fixes to the errors noted in the longer version of this review, as well as better explain to the neophyte how to test/debug the code snippets. Nonetheless, the intended reader would be well served by this particular book.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. You can purchase How to Do Everything with PHP and MySQL from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "As Windows users hear more about Linux, they may be intrigued to give it a try, if only to learn what the buzz is about. But a major hurdle, possibly the most daunting, is how to obtain and install Linux on their PCs without disrupting their Windows installation. To the average PC user (not a techie), the required steps are intimidating; to a computer newbie, they appear impossible. But with the introduction of Linux in the form of 'live CDs,' trying out Linux is as easy as popping a CD into one's computer and rebooting. The entire operating system is stored on the CD, thus avoiding having to install it on the hard drive. Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds , by David Brickner, includes a live CD and explains how to use it." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds author David Brickner pages 341 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059600754X summary A guide for trying Linux on a bootable CD included with the book

This title is another in the growing list of books published by O'Reilly Media, whose user group representative kindly gave me a copy of the book to review. The book comprises 341 pages, and has plenty of screenshots, an appendix of solutions, and a Linux CD secured in an envelope within the back cover.

The particular Linux distribution ("distro") provided on the book's CD is Move, which is based upon Mandriva Linux, which was formerly known as Mandrake. While most Linux aficionados have their favorite distro, and can argue vehemently in favor of one against all others, there is widespread agreement in the Linux community that Mandrake established itself as a solid choice years ago.

Brickner begins this manuscript with an enthusiastic first chapter in which he introduces the computer neophyte to Linux, using cars and test driving as analogies. He briefly mentions how Linux got started, how it fits into GNU/Linux, and what the terms "free software" and "open source" mean. He then describes how to get started with Move by booting off of the CD -- assuming that one's computer has the minimum system requirements (detailed in the book's preface). Non-confident readers will likely appreciate the author's reassuring explanation that Move will not affect their computer's current setup. The chapter continues with an explanation of the KDE desktop, its "kicker" panel, the look and feel of a typical KDE application, window control, desktop background customization, KDE programs that replace Windows applications, and finally how to log out properly.

The next nine chapters of the book cover major application areas, and how to perform common tasks using the corresponding KDE applications of those areas: Web surfing (using Konqueror or Mozilla), file management (Konqueror again), music and videos, games, communication (e-mail and instant messaging), digital image editing (using the GIMP), desktop customization (using the KDE Control Center), office suite (OpenOffice.org), and money management. The final three chapters explore the Linux command line (Konsole), popular programs that are not included on the CD, and advice to those users who decide to switch over to Linux long-term.

In all of the chapters devoted to the major KDE applications, Brickner does a competent job of explaining the basics to the beginner, including handy summaries for more proficient users (such as keyboard shortcuts), and plenty of screenshots that help the reader to verify that they are running the correct application under discussion, and that they are looking in the right places within the application windows. However, all of the figures are in black and white, which makes distinguishing text extremely difficult in those cases where adjacent colors, that are typically well contrasting, merge into shades of dark gray. In addition, I spotted one erratum, on page 84, in which the first letter of "Booting advice for Move" is in a strangely different font, for no apparent reason. This is not representative of the book as a whole, which is well-made, neatly laid out, and uses a flexible layout-flat binding.

Brickner helpfully warns the user of potential pitfalls, such as showstopper dialog boxes being hidden by other Windows. He should be commended for advising the user to set their browser identification to alternatives other than Internet Explorer, if only to encourage Web site owners to not limit the browsers that will work with their sites. One minor error in the browser chapter is, when referring to the Gecko rendering engine used by Mozilla, the author incorrectly identifies it as "gecko," though that may have been an error on the part of the publisher.

For those users who enjoy trying out Linux enough to consider abandoning Windows completely, the final chapter of the book will be most welcome. Brickner identifies which distros are capable of resizing an NTFS-formatted partition; this determines whether or not a user can install that distro on a hard drive already containing Windows, and thus have a dual-boot system. He also distinguishes between those distros that are Windows-like, in that the Linux characteristics are hidden as much as possible, versus those which make no such effort. One potential weakness in his discussion, is that he mentions the ability or inability of particular editions of various distros to authenticate against Windows servers, and yet he does not explain to the reader what that means. On the other hand, any reader who does not understand the idea, probably does not need to.

Overall, I found this book to be worthy of recommendation to anyone who would like to learn more about how to use a robust Linux distro on a live CD. The coverage of topics appears complete, at least for those tasks that the typical computer user needs to perform on a daily basis. There are few errors in the text, and the author has done an admirable job of warning the reader as to potential problems, as well as noting when certain features will not work when running off of the CD, and why. These explanations go a long way to assuaging the reader, who might otherwise become frustrated and conclude that either Move is not operating properly, or that they are doing something wrong. The publisher's choice to use only black and white images, no doubt has the advantage of keeping the book's cost reasonable (a list price of U.S. $24.95), but it has the disadvantages of reducing the utility of those illustrations -- especially when discussing color customization -- in addition to the aforesaid problem of adjacent grayscale regions merging into dark blobs that are difficult to distinguish from one another.

Test Driving Linux is clearly of value in better introducing the public to the power and promise of Linux. It is undoubtedly one of the most user-friendly tools that could assist Linux advocates in spreading the word, and encouraging computer users to break away from operating systems that are expensive, buggy, and non-secure. As Brickner notes in his preface, when people unfamiliar with Linux give it a test drive, by simply booting off of the CD provided with the book, they just might want to stay with Linux long-term.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. You can purchase Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "As Windows users hear more about Linux, they may be intrigued to give it a try, if only to learn what the buzz is about. But a major hurdle, possibly the most daunting, is how to obtain and install Linux on their PCs without disrupting their Windows installation. To the average PC user (not a techie), the required steps are intimidating; to a computer newbie, they appear impossible. But with the introduction of Linux in the form of 'live CDs,' trying out Linux is as easy as popping a CD into one's computer and rebooting. The entire operating system is stored on the CD, thus avoiding having to install it on the hard drive. Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds , by David Brickner, includes a live CD and explains how to use it." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds author David Brickner pages 341 publisher O'Reilly Media rating 8 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 059600754X summary A guide for trying Linux on a bootable CD included with the book

This title is another in the growing list of books published by O'Reilly Media, whose user group representative kindly gave me a copy of the book to review. The book comprises 341 pages, and has plenty of screenshots, an appendix of solutions, and a Linux CD secured in an envelope within the back cover.

The particular Linux distribution ("distro") provided on the book's CD is Move, which is based upon Mandriva Linux, which was formerly known as Mandrake. While most Linux aficionados have their favorite distro, and can argue vehemently in favor of one against all others, there is widespread agreement in the Linux community that Mandrake established itself as a solid choice years ago.

Brickner begins this manuscript with an enthusiastic first chapter in which he introduces the computer neophyte to Linux, using cars and test driving as analogies. He briefly mentions how Linux got started, how it fits into GNU/Linux, and what the terms "free software" and "open source" mean. He then describes how to get started with Move by booting off of the CD -- assuming that one's computer has the minimum system requirements (detailed in the book's preface). Non-confident readers will likely appreciate the author's reassuring explanation that Move will not affect their computer's current setup. The chapter continues with an explanation of the KDE desktop, its "kicker" panel, the look and feel of a typical KDE application, window control, desktop background customization, KDE programs that replace Windows applications, and finally how to log out properly.

The next nine chapters of the book cover major application areas, and how to perform common tasks using the corresponding KDE applications of those areas: Web surfing (using Konqueror or Mozilla), file management (Konqueror again), music and videos, games, communication (e-mail and instant messaging), digital image editing (using the GIMP), desktop customization (using the KDE Control Center), office suite (OpenOffice.org), and money management. The final three chapters explore the Linux command line (Konsole), popular programs that are not included on the CD, and advice to those users who decide to switch over to Linux long-term.

In all of the chapters devoted to the major KDE applications, Brickner does a competent job of explaining the basics to the beginner, including handy summaries for more proficient users (such as keyboard shortcuts), and plenty of screenshots that help the reader to verify that they are running the correct application under discussion, and that they are looking in the right places within the application windows. However, all of the figures are in black and white, which makes distinguishing text extremely difficult in those cases where adjacent colors, that are typically well contrasting, merge into shades of dark gray. In addition, I spotted one erratum, on page 84, in which the first letter of "Booting advice for Move" is in a strangely different font, for no apparent reason. This is not representative of the book as a whole, which is well-made, neatly laid out, and uses a flexible layout-flat binding.

Brickner helpfully warns the user of potential pitfalls, such as showstopper dialog boxes being hidden by other Windows. He should be commended for advising the user to set their browser identification to alternatives other than Internet Explorer, if only to encourage Web site owners to not limit the browsers that will work with their sites. One minor error in the browser chapter is, when referring to the Gecko rendering engine used by Mozilla, the author incorrectly identifies it as "gecko," though that may have been an error on the part of the publisher.

For those users who enjoy trying out Linux enough to consider abandoning Windows completely, the final chapter of the book will be most welcome. Brickner identifies which distros are capable of resizing an NTFS-formatted partition; this determines whether or not a user can install that distro on a hard drive already containing Windows, and thus have a dual-boot system. He also distinguishes between those distros that are Windows-like, in that the Linux characteristics are hidden as much as possible, versus those which make no such effort. One potential weakness in his discussion, is that he mentions the ability or inability of particular editions of various distros to authenticate against Windows servers, and yet he does not explain to the reader what that means. On the other hand, any reader who does not understand the idea, probably does not need to.

Overall, I found this book to be worthy of recommendation to anyone who would like to learn more about how to use a robust Linux distro on a live CD. The coverage of topics appears complete, at least for those tasks that the typical computer user needs to perform on a daily basis. There are few errors in the text, and the author has done an admirable job of warning the reader as to potential problems, as well as noting when certain features will not work when running off of the CD, and why. These explanations go a long way to assuaging the reader, who might otherwise become frustrated and conclude that either Move is not operating properly, or that they are doing something wrong. The publisher's choice to use only black and white images, no doubt has the advantage of keeping the book's cost reasonable (a list price of U.S. $24.95), but it has the disadvantages of reducing the utility of those illustrations -- especially when discussing color customization -- in addition to the aforesaid problem of adjacent grayscale regions merging into dark blobs that are difficult to distinguish from one another.

Test Driving Linux is clearly of value in better introducing the public to the power and promise of Linux. It is undoubtedly one of the most user-friendly tools that could assist Linux advocates in spreading the word, and encouraging computer users to break away from operating systems that are expensive, buggy, and non-secure. As Brickner notes in his preface, when people unfamiliar with Linux give it a test drive, by simply booting off of the CD provided with the book, they just might want to stay with Linux long-term.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter. You can purchase Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "For veterans of the information technology (IT) industry, the late 1990s was a remarkable time. The "dot-com bubble" expanded, the venture capital flowed, and the NASDAQ stocks soared. But now that the bubble has deflated and the e-commerce party has wound down, U.S. IT managers are struggling with reduced budgets. Yet apparently many believe that the sector will regain its past glory and blistering growth rates. According to experienced IT consultant Erik Keller, it's not going to happen. He presents his case in Technology Paradise Lost, published by Manning Publications, whose user group representative kindly provided me with a copy of the book for review." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. Technology Paradise Lost author Erik Keller pages 243 publisher Manning Publications rating 4 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1932394133 summary American programmers and IT departments must do more despite shrinking IT budgets

The dust cover blurb summarizes Keller's position: "...American corporations let IT grow until it reached one half of all corporate capital spending by the year 2000. Now, chastened by their spending failures, IT managers are converging on a new consensus: to exploit IT competitively they must use their smarts over big money. ... Counterintuitively, companies that spend less in order to get more from information technology will likely be the big winners." That's quite a claim, and a thorough reading of the book finds that Keller only supports half of that thesis.

The thought is reiterated early in the book: "...companies can move ahead over the next few years without large increases in their IT budgets. The only thing a company needs is a different perspective." (page xii). That prescription sounds suspiciously similar to the oversimplistic advice found in positive thinking self-help books. Keller does not yet make explicit what the different perspective will do for business. Perhaps it should be taken at face value, in that it will allow companies to move ahead without increasing their IT budgets. But is continued progress without budget increases such a massive gain? More significantly, how does that address the larger issues of failed IT projects, to which he alludes earlier? In my opinion, that issue is of much greater consequence.

Keller correctly points to some of the reasons why the heady e-commerce binges are not about to return: increasing scrutiny of IT budgets, greater demand for return on investment (ROI), cheaper and simpler solutions, offshoring of software development, lower wages to American programmers, abandonment of failing projects, Internet-based architecture, and adoption of open source software (OSS), such as Linux. Addressing these changes at a more strategic level, Keller notes that, "After years of questionable returns, cost overruns, and increased complexity, companies are pushing financial rigor to IT groups." (page 6).

The book's first seven chapters discuss the primary factors in leading to reduced IT expenditures, at least within the U.S. business community. But the last four chapters go over previous ground, with more variations on the theme of reduced IT spending, interspersed with several examples from various corporations. The reader may get the sense that not much new information or recommendations are being offered, but instead that these four chapters are serving as filler, to beef up the size of the book. Otherwise, it would be more obvious that the book's usable contents could be boiled down into one meaty article.

Keller's primary thesis, that American IT could in the future produce more returns for less investment, has two primary components. The near-term and likely long-term trend for declining corporate spending on IT, is well established in his book. In fact, one could argue that reduced IT spending is not something that American companies will adopt by choice, but instead will be forced upon them due to deflationary pressures, increased costs for natural resources, and declining ability to pass along cost increases to U.S. consumers falling further behind financially. But the flip side of his thesis, that companies will get even more results despite spending less money, is not nearly as well substantiated. Not a single one of the chapters in the book is devoted to demonstrating that this is happening, or will happen. Companies may be able to maintain current levels of service despite reduced funding; but greater results per dollar invested (i.e., efficiency) does not imply greater results on an absolute basis. As such, Keller's big claim noted earlier, is only half fulfilled.

The critical questions -- concerning the proper role and funding of IT -- are presented in the book couched in the language used by high-level business managers, who speak in vague terms about "technology" and "infrastructure," and yet have little or no real understanding of how it truly works, having spent their earlier years pursuing MBAs rather than programming computers. It could be argued that such general terminology must necessarily be used when discussing information technology among business managers. That may be true, but it does not lessen the dangers of fuzzy thinking and overly broad conclusions found in Keller's book and in the typical articles discussing IT purpose, strategy, and utilization. In particular, such excessively broad strokes, in my experience, not only mask the ignorance of the IT manager demanding miracles from their staff, but invariably increases the odds that upper management will be seduced by the handwaving consulting firms -- and thus fall prey to the mistakes delineated by Keller.

Of all the inapt analogies in the book, its title is perhaps the most egregious. Alluding to John Milton's famous narrative poem, "technology paradise lost" implies that there was a time when IT resource usage was idyllic, if not perfect. Yet by Keller's own account, the misspending and failed projects, followed by financial discipline imposed by the outside world, are anything but heaven-sent. One cannot lose what has never been found.

Weighing in at 243 pages, Technology Paradise Lost is a quicker read than many other business books. Part of that is due to the unfortunate repetition of a few core ideas. Fortunately, the book has just enough tables, charts, and breakouts, to add some visual variety to the text.

The book benefits from the author's clear writing style, no doubt honed from over two decades of creating articles, documents, and presentations intended for business managers. Keller does a solid job of utilizing real world statistics and examples to back up his assessments.

Despite the repetition, sloppy analogies, and business-speak generality, Technology Paradise Lost offers a valid discussion of changes currently being experienced by the American IT industry as it grudgingly recovers from the Internet boom and bust. The book may be of value to IT managers who, for whatever reason, are ignorant of the obvious transformations that are taking place. Yet, any IT industry participant who devotes even a modicum of time to monitoring the latest developments and trends, should be well aware of IT budget trimming, offshoring, open source software, and other cost-saving methods. Otherwise, to be so out of touch with reality would be inexcusable. On the other hand, that was one of the primary symptoms before and during the widespread dot-com insanity, and could easily account for any beliefs in its imminent return.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter." You can purchase Technology Paradise Lost from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Michael J. Ross writes "For veterans of the information technology (IT) industry, the late 1990s was a remarkable time. The "dot-com bubble" expanded, the venture capital flowed, and the NASDAQ stocks soared. But now that the bubble has deflated and the e-commerce party has wound down, U.S. IT managers are struggling with reduced budgets. Yet apparently many believe that the sector will regain its past glory and blistering growth rates. According to experienced IT consultant Erik Keller, it's not going to happen. He presents his case in Technology Paradise Lost, published by Manning Publications, whose user group representative kindly provided me with a copy of the book for review." Read on for the rest of Ross's review. Technology Paradise Lost author Erik Keller pages 243 publisher Manning Publications rating 4 reviewer Michael J. Ross ISBN 1932394133 summary American programmers and IT departments must do more despite shrinking IT budgets

The dust cover blurb summarizes Keller's position: "...American corporations let IT grow until it reached one half of all corporate capital spending by the year 2000. Now, chastened by their spending failures, IT managers are converging on a new consensus: to exploit IT competitively they must use their smarts over big money. ... Counterintuitively, companies that spend less in order to get more from information technology will likely be the big winners." That's quite a claim, and a thorough reading of the book finds that Keller only supports half of that thesis.

The thought is reiterated early in the book: "...companies can move ahead over the next few years without large increases in their IT budgets. The only thing a company needs is a different perspective." (page xii). That prescription sounds suspiciously similar to the oversimplistic advice found in positive thinking self-help books. Keller does not yet make explicit what the different perspective will do for business. Perhaps it should be taken at face value, in that it will allow companies to move ahead without increasing their IT budgets. But is continued progress without budget increases such a massive gain? More significantly, how does that address the larger issues of failed IT projects, to which he alludes earlier? In my opinion, that issue is of much greater consequence.

Keller correctly points to some of the reasons why the heady e-commerce binges are not about to return: increasing scrutiny of IT budgets, greater demand for return on investment (ROI), cheaper and simpler solutions, offshoring of software development, lower wages to American programmers, abandonment of failing projects, Internet-based architecture, and adoption of open source software (OSS), such as Linux. Addressing these changes at a more strategic level, Keller notes that, "After years of questionable returns, cost overruns, and increased complexity, companies are pushing financial rigor to IT groups." (page 6).

The book's first seven chapters discuss the primary factors in leading to reduced IT expenditures, at least within the U.S. business community. But the last four chapters go over previous ground, with more variations on the theme of reduced IT spending, interspersed with several examples from various corporations. The reader may get the sense that not much new information or recommendations are being offered, but instead that these four chapters are serving as filler, to beef up the size of the book. Otherwise, it would be more obvious that the book's usable contents could be boiled down into one meaty article.

Keller's primary thesis, that American IT could in the future produce more returns for less investment, has two primary components. The near-term and likely long-term trend for declining corporate spending on IT, is well established in his book. In fact, one could argue that reduced IT spending is not something that American companies will adopt by choice, but instead will be forced upon them due to deflationary pressures, increased costs for natural resources, and declining ability to pass along cost increases to U.S. consumers falling further behind financially. But the flip side of his thesis, that companies will get even more results despite spending less money, is not nearly as well substantiated. Not a single one of the chapters in the book is devoted to demonstrating that this is happening, or will happen. Companies may be able to maintain current levels of service despite reduced funding; but greater results per dollar invested (i.e., efficiency) does not imply greater results on an absolute basis. As such, Keller's big claim noted earlier, is only half fulfilled.

The critical questions -- concerning the proper role and funding of IT -- are presented in the book couched in the language used by high-level business managers, who speak in vague terms about "technology" and "infrastructure," and yet have little or no real understanding of how it truly works, having spent their earlier years pursuing MBAs rather than programming computers. It could be argued that such general terminology must necessarily be used when discussing information technology among business managers. That may be true, but it does not lessen the dangers of fuzzy thinking and overly broad conclusions found in Keller's book and in the typical articles discussing IT purpose, strategy, and utilization. In particular, such excessively broad strokes, in my experience, not only mask the ignorance of the IT manager demanding miracles from their staff, but invariably increases the odds that upper management will be seduced by the handwaving consulting firms -- and thus fall prey to the mistakes delineated by Keller.

Of all the inapt analogies in the book, its title is perhaps the most egregious. Alluding to John Milton's famous narrative poem, "technology paradise lost" implies that there was a time when IT resource usage was idyllic, if not perfect. Yet by Keller's own account, the misspending and failed projects, followed by financial discipline imposed by the outside world, are anything but heaven-sent. One cannot lose what has never been found.

Weighing in at 243 pages, Technology Paradise Lost is a quicker read than many other business books. Part of that is due to the unfortunate repetition of a few core ideas. Fortunately, the book has just enough tables, charts, and breakouts, to add some visual variety to the text.

The book benefits from the author's clear writing style, no doubt honed from over two decades of creating articles, documents, and presentations intended for business managers. Keller does a solid job of utilizing real world statistics and examples to back up his assessments.

Despite the repetition, sloppy analogies, and business-speak generality, Technology Paradise Lost offers a valid discussion of changes currently being experienced by the American IT industry as it grudgingly recovers from the Internet boom and bust. The book may be of value to IT managers who, for whatever reason, are ignorant of the obvious transformations that are taking place. Yet, any IT industry participant who devotes even a modicum of time to monitoring the latest developments and trends, should be well aware of IT budget trimming, offshoring, open source software, and other cost-saving methods. Otherwise, to be so out of touch with reality would be inexcusable. On the other hand, that was one of the primary symptoms before and during the widespread dot-com insanity, and could easily account for any beliefs in its imminent return.

Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter." You can purchase Technology Paradise Lost from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.