I’ve held jobs with small businesses and large enterprises. There are a few things that I’ve observed about small businesses that are probably true for many of them. The first would be that often wages for technical positions are lower than at the bigger shops, but so is the bar to entry. That often means employees have less experience. At the same time, in a smaller shop, people are often called upon to wear many hats. I spent about 5 years with one company where I was lead developer, the only DBA and the system administrator for all our Linux servers. Our team was small and all of us had complete access to pretty much everything. It was a great opportunity to learn. The one thing I never did get into too deeply was networking, things had to be pretty bad for them to pull me in on a problem in that area. When we needed to make changes to our Cisco routers we brought in a guy from outside. I wish Cisco Routers for the Small Business had been around then. I think we’d have been able to save quite a bit of money and I’d have learned quite a bit more about networking.

The author, Jason Neumann, is the owner of a small networking company in Anchorage, Alaska. He has quite a few years of experience in working with small businesses. His practical experience has resulted in a book that is itself extremely focused and practical. Apress calls it a guide, it could also be accurately described as an extended tutorial or another popular term with tech books recently, a cookbook. I see this as a real strength as one is not paying for a bunch of pages filled with indirectly related material. At the same time, potential readers need to understand that this is not networking book. It is a users guide for Cisco 800 series and SOHO routers. The author highly recommends having a spare one on hand to use. The instructions and examples will work on this equipment, but not on routers built by another company, or even Cisco routers built for larger environments. As I said, the focus is tight, but for people in the right environment this means on target help with little to get in the way of putting things immediately to work.

The table of contents breaks down exactly what the book covers in great detail. (That will take you to a page with a link to a pdf of the table. I have no idea why, but that’s how they do it.) The first four chapters cover the basics. The first and second chapters handle connecting and configuring including items like the LAN interface, DHCP server, WAN interface, NAT, the firewall and configuring a basic DMZ. Every chapter ends with a summary. These summaries are a nice resource as they still give the example steps that apply to each section but do so with less explanation. This means that going back to refresh on a section does not require working through the full initial explanation but just hopping back to the summary. Someone who already has some experience with networking and these routers could also use this section as a reference if they don’t need all of the supporting material.

Chapter 5 is entitled “Beyond the Basics” and as one would expect moves into things that get a little more technical. That said, I am not sure I wouldn’t have lumped chapter 5 in with the first four. Most everything in it is still important and not the kind of thing that one would want to blow off as more advanced and not necessary in a smaller environment. In fact a couple items, creating a local user, and setting up SSH are items that I would probably have liked to see in the first or second chapter. Recovering lost passwords and backing things up are also extremely important and eminently practical. Chapter 6 is a bit different as it is probably the most generic in the book. It is a tutorial on subnetting. Everything covered is related to IPv4. Chapter 7 covers routing protocols and focuses on RIP. Chapter 8 is about Variable Length Subnet Masking. Neumann explains that understanding this is necessary to gaining CCNA certification. Reading through it, I can imagine situations where it could be useful in a small business but it seems more applicable to larger environments.

I’m still no networking expert. This is much more of a practical tool on how to get the most from a specific type of hardware. But I did gain some good general knowledge in the process. I work in a larger environment now and was able to have one of our network guys look the book over. He was impressed at the depth of coverage and how thorough the instructions are. As he said, “If you just open this up and follow each step exactly it will take you through most everything you need to know.” He was also impressed with how current the book is and how much it covered in such a short amount of space.

There are 5 indices that follow the 8 chapters. They include many more samples as well as a CLI command reference. The first chapter shows how to set up Hyper Terminal on a Windows machine and all examples are given from a CLI environment. Neuman does point *nix users towards possible commands, but seems to assume that they’ll know what to do to get connected. Other than setting up Hyper Terminal the only other time examples include screen shots of a GUI are the section on logging and setting up the Kiwi syslog daemon.

So I would say, if you are someone in a small business that is using or looking to use Cisco 800 series equipment, you may really want to look at picking up this book. The person who already knows Cisco and their IOS well may find it to be a great quick reference. The IT guy who doesn’t have that experience, but has responsibility for getting things working and keeping them that way will most likely really appreciate this helpful guide. I highly recommend this well written and practical book written for hardware that is sure to be around for some time to come.

Title: Cisco Routers for the Small Business
Author: Jason C. Neumann
Publisher: Apress
Pages: 269
ISBN: 978-1-4302-1851-7
Rating: 9/10
Tagline: Securely configure Cisco’s 800 and SOHO series routers using IOS – Cisco’s powerful Internetwork Operating System.

There is not a single person writing code in the US who is not impacted by the countries intellectual property laws. I think that it is safe to say, that not all of them have a strong understanding of just what those laws are, let alone what they mean. At the same time, there are a number of people, who may or may not be qualified, but are more than willing to share opinions and advice. Some take the time to slap a warning label on such input and IANAL is now widely understood. (I Am Not A Lawyer – Because widely does not mean everyone.) Stepping into this gap is programmer become lawyer Van Lindberg with his new book “Intellectual Property and Open Source.” Lindberg has really done something special with this volume. I don’t think I’ve ever read a tech oriented work where I’ve felt so convinced that I was reading something that would become a standard by which others would come to be judged.

Let me quickly state what this book is not. It is not comprehensive. It does not cover all of US law on intellectual property. What it does cover is mostly viewed from a high level that does not address many finer points. It is not a reference for IP laws outside of the United States. While there is some commonality in various parts of the world, I think the differences preclude this book from being too useful for anyone not impacted by US law.

So what is this book? To me it felt very much like sitting down with a lawyer who can speak my language, understands my concerns, uses open source software, cares about freedom and has a gift for building metaphors and illustrations that make sense. It is that ability to bridge the gap between lawyer and developer and do it in an readable way that makes this such an incredible book. If it were just accurate and thorough but I couldn’t get past a couple pages it wouldn’t be worth much. If things weren’t put into terms that I could grasp and apply to real life situations, the same would be true.

The first seven chapters are a primer on the history and current status of U.S. IP law. Lindberg walks the reader through patents, copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, contracts and licenses. He discusses how these impact inventors and developers. I had considered myself to be casually familiar with most of these, but was surprised how much I learned. I was also a bit scared by the time I was done with it all. Lindberg cites not only the pitfalls that are out there, but backs it up with case history that illustrates his points. More than once I caught myself thinking, “I guess that is possible but it is unlikely.” only to be reading a page or two later about how it had already happened and was in some cases still finding its way through the courts. This was all quite a wake-up call for me.

Chapter eight and on deal with how one can operate in the open source world. Lindberg talks about just what Open Source is and then handles the many things that a developer needs to consider from just how to handle a new idea (especially if one is employed) to choosing a license, accepting patches, reverse engineering without being as likely to get sued, and setting up a non-profit to run a project.

I found the discussion on various licenses and just what they mean to be especially helpful. There is a general discussion that covers a wide array of licesnes, and then a separate chapter just for working with the GPL. There is an illustration in that chapter that I think stands as an excellent illustration of what this book is like. “The Darth Vader Scale of Derivative Works”, found in chapter twelve, serves to illustrate the Free Software Foundation’s position on the applicability of the GPL. Lindberg takes time and care to explain the issue, but the figure showing a range from little “Anny” to the fully cloaked and helmeted Darth Vader shows how he also makes it fun at the same time.

It is not absolutely necessary to read through the book from start to finish but I would highly recommend it. The conversational style makes it easy to do, and there are concepts and metaphors that Lindberg reuses throughout the book that will be easier to understand if the reader has familiarity with their use right from the start. That said, the table of contents, index and topical separation of chapters will make this useful as a reference. I would just agree with Lindberg that reading it through first will make such use easier in the future.

The book has appendices that contribute over 80 pages to the total length. These include a sample Proprietary Information Agreement, a list of Open Source licenses ( along with some descriptions of how they are used), a Free Software license list, a list of the licenses used with Fedora on a grid that lists GPL compatibility, the full text for a number of licenses and a very nice GPL Compatibility Matrix. That matrix shows what versions of *GPL licenses can be used with one another from the perspective of adding code to an already licensed project or licensing a project that will include code already licensed under one of the *GPL licenses.

Some of the sections are quite sobering. I don’t think becoming more educated about these issues is going to encourage most people that things are headed in the right direction. That said, I don’t think they will arrive at that conclusion because Lindberg is pushing some opinion. He is very even handed in his approach and it is obvious that he took great pains to focus on one single goal, disseminating accurate and valuable information without letting anything else get in the way. He leaves value judgments to the reader. When there are issues of debate he presents information on both sides, and may express his leaning but does not argue for it or attack other view points.

This book may be frustrating for those who just want copyright and all intellectual property laws to go away. I get the sense that while Lindberg believes that there is a lot of room for improvement, he isn’t trying to describe what could or should be, he is just giving advice on how to try and best navigate what is. Right now, the penalties for failing to understand the current environment can be quite harsh, and so I think that such a guide is very important.

I’ve not ever rated a book a ten before. I don’t want to sound like a publicity or marketing piece and I hope in this review I’ve successfully argued that I am reasonable in my belief that this is an important book. It is a book very much worth reading, most especially if you create for a living.

Title: Intellectual Property and Open Source
Author: Van Lindberg
Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Pages: 371
ISBN: 978-0-596-51796-0
Rating: 10/10
Tagline: A practical guide to protecting code.

When I first started working with Linux just a short 10 years or so ago, it was a little more difficult than now to get going. I remember the difficulty I had, wrestling with my first Slackware install and getting all the floppies together to get the packages that I needed. Today, a person who has never set on eyes on Linux before can have it installed on it’s own system or alongside another OS in almost no time with a very nice graphical installer walking them through the process. I also remember the hours I spent looking for the little piece of knowledge that I needed to conquer my next problem. Now, someone new to the community has a vast array of resources available on the web, or if they are inclined to begin with Ubuntu, they can literally find almost every single thing they will need in the single volume of Mark Sobell’s “A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux.”

I’m sure this sounds a bit like hyperbole. Every thing a person would need to know? Obviously not everything but this book, weighing in at just under 1200 pages covers so much, so thoroughly that there wont be much left out. From install to admin, networking, security, shell scripting, package management and a host of other topics, it is all there. GUI and command line tools are covered. There is not really any wasted space or fluff, just a huge amount of information. There are screen shots when appropriate but they do not take up an inordinate amount of space. This book is information dense.

A lot of that information is very basic. The experienced Linux user or sysadmin is going to find that there is a huge amount of material here that is very foundational. There are advanced topics covered but they are spread out through all the basic material that leads up to them. I think the battle hardened Linux user with a solid understanding of how and why things work would probably be better off with something that doesn’t spend as much time building from the bottom up. But for the others, those new to Linux or those who’ve been using it but have always felt like they were winging it or just holding on, this book could be a ticket to a much higher level of proficiency and a much deeper understanding.

This is an Ubuntu book. It’s in the title and so it will not teach everything about Linux, yet at the same time it is so deep that it will cover topics that are common across all distros. The chapter on Bash and shell scripting are solid and would help any Linux user whatever flavor they prefer. On the other hand, KDE gets covered but to a much lesser extent than Gnome. The book can’t be faulted for this, it is an example of getting what the title says is there. But I would say that by and large the widely applicable outweighs the specific by a great margin. The ls command is ls on any distro. Learning how to work with sudo is valuable even outside of Linux and on Unix systems.

The style is very straightforward. Sobell is not trying to entertain with wacky humor or stories. No religious zealotry here by and large. It is just straightforward explanations of commands, tools and examples of how they are used. And the reader is given a nice set of tools to help them find what they want. The index is 72 pages long. There are 2 tables of contents. The first is the “Brief Contents” and the second takes 23 pages to break down every chapter and section. The book also comes with 45 days of free access to the book electronically through Safari. (I didn’t know there are non-O’Reilly books on Safari, but apparently there are.) I’m guessing that these reference tools will be important as most people will not read this monster from cover to cover, but rather read sections as they are needed, or use the book as a reference when they are stuck.

As I mentioned, everything is explained from the most basic level for gui and command line interfaces. This is what I think would be frustrating for more experienced users. But it is what makes this such a strong title for anyone else. The only other exception might be the new Linux user who is not interested in digging beyond the surface. The person who has possibly moved away from windows but wants something that just works. They would have no need either for the in depth explanations of administration, setting up servers, networking, etc. I think that this book really hits the sweet spot for the reader who would like to move from novice to expert. If they master all the material in the book they will have a very solid grasp of what Linux is about and how it works. Then when they do work with it, they will be able to learn from their successes and failures and gain the experience that will take them to the next level. As opposed to just flailing in the dark, getting things to go their way on occasion, but never knowing exactly why or how things did or did not work.

In fact the book is written primarily as a text book and even includes exercises at the end of each chapter. Often there are regular and advanced exercises. Answers to the even numbered exercises are available at sobell.com. It would be nice if all the exercises had answers available. I hate to think that some person may think they have answered a problem correctly when in fact they have not.

The book comes with a dvd containing everything needed for a full install of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). I guess this might make the title more appealing to the bandwidth challenged, though the ease of getting a free cd or being able to purchase a dvd through Amazon for less than $15 makes this less enticing. If it were used as a textbook in a classroom setting, this would make sense though as every student would be assured of having everything they need in a single package. The text itself focuses on this version of Ubuntu. With 8.04 out now in Beta and coming soon in its final form, the rapid development of Ubuntu does serve to highlight the difference in relative speed as compared to the publishing industry. Fortunately for the book, it’s emphasis on foundational concepts, commands and tools means that it wont be completely useless when the next version rolls out. This is good news also for anyone who invests in a copy of the text.

The server section is a bit short I thought, focusing on mail, nis, nfs, samba, dns, iptables and apache. I guess I’m biased, being a dba, but I do think throwing in something on MySQL and/or PostgreSQL would have been nice. I know the book is already huge but a few more pages wouldn’t have meant too much. Or maybe they could have been swapped out for the appendix defining free software. There are 5 appendixes covering Regular Expressions, Help, Security, the definition of free software and working with the 2.6 kernel. There is also a very nice glossary.

If I ever had to teach a class on linux, get someone up to speed on using linux who had little or no experience, or just wanted a reference with broad and thorough coverage, I wouldn’t hesitate to use this book. The information is current, accurate and understandable. Commands are introduced and revisited later as they fit in with topics. The excellent index keeps this from being a usability issue. Rather than being frustrating it fits in nicely with the overall learning curve of the text. There is a lot here that I learned by trial and error or watching over the shoulder of a more experienced co-worker. Someone looking to accelerate their learning would certainly find this to be an excellent guide rather than waiting on that much longer method of picking it up as it comes along.

So I consider the book to be a 9/10. Giving it a 9 only because it is somewhat tied to a specific version of a specific distribution. It may seem to many right now that Ubuntu is unix but there are a lot of other options out there. And even for the Ubuntu user 7.10 wont be around forever. But the information is so solid and covers things so well from front to back that I consider this to be a very strong book. If I had had something like this when I first started using Linux, who knows? At least newcomers to Linux now don’t have to wonder.

Title: A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux
Author: Mark G. Sobell
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Pages: 1186
ISBN: 013236039X
Rating: 9/10

The X Window System has been around for over twenty years and is the display system for an incredibly wide range of operating systems. With the number of Linux users growing, there are more people working with X than ever before. Most modern desktop environments provide user friendly interfaces that make modifying X rather simple. There is not so much need to dig into config files and settings as in the past but for those environments without such tools or for the user who loves to dig deep into their environment this book can be a simple way to understanding how X works and how to tweak it in any number of ways. If you want things that ‘just work’ and have no interest in digging around below the surface this book is not for you. On the other hand, if you think the best thing to do with a shiny new tool is to take it apart, well “X Power Tools” by Chris Tyler may be just for you.

The author, Chris Tyler, is a professor at Seneca College in Toronto as well as a programmer and Linux user. His first book published by O’Reilly was “Fedora Linux: A Complete Guide to Red Hat’s Community Distribution”, published in 2006. He cites the growth in X users, combined with active development and the lack of existing books that address X as the motivation for writing “X Power Tools.”

X is the windowing system on a wide range of Unix and Unix like systems. Chris is obviously most familiar with Linux and so the material is heavily Linux oriented. This is most apparent when the book deals with Session Managers, Desktop Environments and Window Managers. The material focuses on Gnome, KDE and Xfce and their associated components in regards to X. For the Linux user this could be a valuable resource.

When I’ve had issues in working with X locally and over the network, I’ve found that while what I need is available on the web, getting just what I need can be very labor intensive at times. Usually just what I want is spread across tutorials, on-line man pages and forum posts. Sorting out what applies to my situation can be especially difficult when I’m not even sure just how things work for my setup. Chris makes this kind of guessing unnecessary and provides the locations and function of key files. He also spells out how the most important files and tools can be best used.

For the sysadmin on another platform, these Linux specific sections are not going to be much help. Most of the book though, deals with X itself. I’ve already loaned my copy to one of our AIX admins more than once and I think he plans on picking up a copy of his own.

When Gnome and KDE provide an interface for modifying or customizing X functionality, the book gives at least the name of the program and sometimes screen shots and explanations of how the tool works. This is always after an illustration of how to get the job done with the tools that are a part of X itself. From fonts to keyboard layouts, multi-display to kiosks, everything required is laid out in straight forward terms.

For me, as a Fedora user myself, this means that having read this book I approach my work environment with a new level of confidence. Behaviors that used to puzzle me, now make complete sense. Quirks that bothered me, no longer need to be tolerated as I know have the tools to get things working just the way I want, rather than using defaults.

The book has just come out, so it was being written before the release of KDE 4. I’ve looked through the documentation and I don’t think any of the changes to programs like KDM or KWin make the information in the book out of date. In fact, according to the KWin release notes, when discussing KWins new compositing support, “…manual configuration of X may be required for proper results…” So if you are a KDE user that likes to live on the edge, this book may come in handy.

O’Reilly says that their “Power Tool” books are comprised of a series of stand-alone articles that are cross-referenced to one another. To be honest, it didn’t feel much different from reading any other tech book. Topics flowed naturally and the articles are analogous to sections that divide up chapters in other books. One nice navigation feature is that page numbers are on the bottom of the pages while chapter and article numbers are at the top corner in a decimal notations. For example at the top of page 58 there is a grey square containing the number 3.13 which means that it is the 13th article in chapter 3.

The book has a thorough index. It also comes with 45 days free access to an electronic version through O’Reilly Safari.

For me the only real weakness of the book is that I would like to have seen more information on working with X on Unix. When reference is made to specific implementation of X it is almost always in regards to Linux. I wouldn’t want to lose that, but I think a mixed environment of Unix, Linux and Windows is more the rule than the exception today. It would be more work to include other operating systems, but it would have also made the book much more valuable.

All tech books face the danger of becoming quickly useless as progress marches forward. X is actively being developed, but at the same time, looking back on its history I think this book will be useful for sysadmin and user for some time to come.

Title: X Power Tools
Author: Chris Tyler
Publisher: O’Reilly Media Inc.
Pages: 270
ISBN: 0596101953
Rating: 9/10

The book follows a consistent format throughout the chapters. It truly is a cook book with the recipes taking the form of problems and solutions. There are eighteen chapters containing these recipes, the first chapter is a brief overview of networking in general. I think that Schroder’s experience in implementing Linux networks or working with Linux in heterogenous networks really shows in the types of solutions and scenarios presented in the book.

Often as I worked through exercises, I kept thinking that what this book gave me was what I would have after hours of Googling and sifting through the results. Schroder has boiled that kind of hunting down to the necessary steps from installation, through configuration and use. For the person who values their time, or is not sure where to start searching for answers, this is a great resource.

The limitation of a recipe format is that modifying the solution or moving away from the detailed plan requires more experience and knowledge the further the reader departs from the given formula. Schroder has dealt with this issue in many chapters by giving instructions appropriate to Fedora and Debian. There are a couple exceptions to this which I will explain below.

I think that a strength of the book is that Schroder has not limited herself to desktop PC hardware. She is presenting a true overview of networking and so if the reader intends to work through every solution in the book, they are going to need to purchase some hardware. Some may object to this, and it is not absolutely necessary. Someone with enough experience or willing to do the research could shift things around and use say, an old desktop machine, but at that point they would be really doing things on their own and not needing the book.

There are 2 chapters that focus on building network devices with Pyramid Linux on a Single-Board computer. The hardware Schroder uses to write the solutions is a Soekris 4521, which retails for about $150. I think it is good that a person who might want to use this book knows that up front. To me, this is a much more economical solution than suggesting that one get their hands on a commercial device, and allows much more flexibility. Schroder could have shied away from asking for the reader to go to this step, but I think the choice reflects her commitment to making the book useful in real world situations.

The chapter on building an Asterisk VoIP system would probably also work best with some nice headphone/microphone sets that may be a necessary purchase for many. They are not required, a soundcard, microphone and speakers would work as well.

Having parallel solutions for Fedora and Debian side by side is very nice. After each solution there is also discussion of pertinent issues and reference to applicable resources. The other resources include pointing out appropriate man pages, web sites and other books. Schroder’s style throughout is relaxed and very succinct. The nineteen chapters do cover such a wide array of technologies and issues, this book could easily be twice as large if she were wordy, instead it is very portable.

The chapters on network devices, routing, network monitoring and using linux to manage a network would be most valuable I think to network administrators or the person wearing that hat in a smaller shop. The chapters that revolve around connecting to systems remotely and using linux to manage windows machines could be a real boon to anyone who works in a mixed environment that includes more than just Linux machines. I’ve found all of it to be of value because I interact with all these pieces every day. It is nice to have a better grasp of how subnets are built and how routers work. I look forward to not relying on a gui or searching endless forums to get a good grasp on managing my iptables firewall.

Following the body, the book has three appendices. The first is a list of other resources. This is primarily other O’Reilly books, but there are books from other publishers and some resources available on the web. The second is a glossary of networking terms. The most useful to me was the third, a kernel building reference. I found the index to be decent. It isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. The book comes with free access to it through Safari for 45 days, I thought that was a nice plus. O’Reilly has all of the examples available for download and the author’s website is also a good launch point for related articles and information.

This book is a great way for the self learner to have a relatively unobtrusive guide while they gain direct experience in networking. Reading it alone wont do it, and there is still much to learn after completing each exercise, but a large part of the core competencies are there and thoroughly covered. I think there is also a lot here for that reader who has lobbied to get Linux in the door and now faces the task of getting their Linux machine to play nice with the rest of the network.

Title: Linux Networking Cookbook
Author: Carla Schroder
Pages: 615
Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Rating: 9/10
ISBN: 0-596-10248-8
Tagline: From asterisk to zebra with easy to use recipes.