bookGeek – Page 4

Zoe’s Tale

Posted on 12 December, 2008 by bookGeek

John Scalzi the author of Hugo Award nominated science fiction novel Old Man’s War has built what started as a story serialized in his blog into a series of full novels and short stories. The latest installment in the OMW universe, Zoe’s Tale is quite a departure from the previous three books. It is the first of Scalzi’s sci-fi novels written intentionally as young adult fiction. In a move that I am sure will continue to fuel Scalzi/Heinlein comparisons, Zoe is a precocious young woman thrust into a world of adventure and danger. In just three years Scalzi has built an impressive resume as an author of fiction and Zoe’s Tale will be no small part of what looks to be an influential and outstanding career.

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The Manga Guide to Statistics

Posted on 11 December, 2008 by bookGeek

Many manga titles, popular in Japan are being translated into English and published in the United States. This trend continues with a book that puts a slightly different spin on manga. The Manga Guide to Statistics, part of a series already popular in Japan, seeks to entertain while it informs. There are many elements here that can be found in any manga; a young love struck girl, giant eyes, small noses and exagerated emotional responses. What many may have not seen in manga before are things like calculating the mean, median and deviation of bowling scores. And that is just the start. Continue reading “The Manga Guide to Statistics” →

MySQL in a Nutshell

Posted on 30 November, 2008 by bookGeek

MySQL is frequently touted as the world’s most widely used relational database management system. Many of the worlds most well known web applications and web sites use MySQL as their data repository. The popularity of MySQL has continued to grow while at the same time many were taken aback by the lack of many features considered to be essential to a ‘real’ rdbms. Such naysayers have done little to impeed the growth or development of MySQL. The first edition of MySQL in a Nutshell, published in 2005 gave users a handy reference to using MySQL. The second edition published in 2008 with coverage of many new features that MySQL fans proudly proclaim as an answer to all those critics clamoring for a more well rounded rdbms.

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Learning Drupal 6 Module Development

Posted on 24 November, 2008 by bookGeek

I am extremely interested in building user driven sites that allow for scaling up communication and collaboration between individuals that share common goals. There are a number of approaches to this type of problem. Of course, as always – one can pick a platform, language, etc. and start building from scratch. Another option is to choose a framework and build from there. But what intrigues me most, and I am seeing a lot of people take this approach, is to find an existing solution that is extensible and using that as the platform. This means the jump to a working site is immediate. Many of these environments are being built on top of content management software.
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Ender in Exile

Posted on 17 November, 2008 by bookGeek

Orson Scott Card’s work Ender’s Game began as a novelette, that he says he wrote as a means of leading up to the full story he had developed, Speaker for the Dead. Ender’s Game was published as a full novel in 1985, won the Hugo and Nebula awards (as did Speaker for the Dead in ’86 and ’87). I think it is safe to say that Ender’s Game is ensconced in its position as a science fiction classic. Now, 23 years later, Card has finished the first direct sequel to Ender’s Game in his new novel Ender in Exile.

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The Last Colony

Posted on 5 November, 2008 by bookGeek

John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe now spans four novels, The Last Colony is the third. Of those initial three this is the one that is most a sequel. The first, Old Man’s War and the second, The Ghost Brigades each stand alone. And I think that The Last Colony actually can do so as well, but this is the first where the main characters are both from the previous books. That said, this is still a complete story and may even appeal to readers who may have not been crazy about the previous books.

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Shroud – Short Story

Posted on 10 October, 2008 by bookGeek

This is a little outside the norm for me – but a friend of mine from slashdot won a short story contest and it is a pretty great story in my estimation. So if you would like to enjoy a quick but well done read – head on over and check out Shroud. I guess I am a bit biased by the fact that my nick over at the dot is stoolpigeon – and this story has a lot of pigeons in it. But it really is very well written.

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