bookGeek – Page 5

Dojo Using the Dojo JavaScript Library to Build Ajax Applications

Posted on 2 October, 2008 by bookGeek

The number and functionality of web based applications has exploded recently. Many of these applications rely heavily on AJAX to provide a more desktop-like experience for users. As the number of people using JavaScript grew, libraries were developed to assist with commonly encountered issues. Jim Harmon’s new book “Dojo: Using the Dojo JavaScript Library to Build Ajax Applications” aims to introduce readers to one of those libraries, the Dojo Toolkit.

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Intellectual Property and Open Source

Posted on 21 August, 2008 by bookGeek

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.
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The Ultimate CSS Reference

Posted on 12 August, 2008 by bookGeek

Cascading Style Sheets are now the dominant method used to format web pages. Even something as simple as modifying a WordPress blog can involve digging around a bit in CSS. A quick search at Amazon on CSS returns over 7 thousand books in the computer category alone. This book claims to be the ultimate though, and that made me approach it with a bit of skepticism. Sure, it could be a decent reference, but is it truly the ultimate reference? I admit I was curious to see.
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Kipling e-books

Posted on 24 July, 2008 by bookGeek

This is a bit of a stretch – but here is my tenuous connection. Heinlein quotes Kipling in Starship Troopers. So if you want to read more Kipling, inspired by classic Sci-Fi, download some of Kipling’s works here in html or mobi format.

The real reason I post this is just because I really like Kipling and it’s my blog. I promise I wont abuse the privilege too often.

New Tor Site – Free E-books

Posted on 20 July, 2008 by bookGeek

Tor has launched their new social, sci-fi, fantasy and much more, blogging, new fiction, super duper site. Right now there are 2 short stories up and available to read/download. They are “After The Coup” by John Scalzi, and “Down On The Farm” by Charles Stross. Both in worlds developed by the authors in full novels. Scalzi’s story is in the Old Man’s War universe and is a great read. Stross’s story is from his “Laundry” stories, which I don’t know but I liked this story. Nice mix of magic, math and computing.

On top of all that, for a limited time every ebook and piece of art they made available during their promotional period leading up to the launch of the site are all available right here. Every book is available in multiple drm free formats. I’ve read 3 so far and loved all 3. I’m working on my fourth now. There are over 20 total and so I’ll have lots of fun stuff to read for some time.

If they stick with what it says in the post – all this will no longer be available 7 days from now. They will shut it all down after the 27th. The artwork is also amazing and available in a wide number of sizes. This is when the Down Them All plugin for firefox really comes in handy. Right-Click, Save As just wont cut it for this much awesome stuff.

The Homeless Moon Chapbook

Posted on 19 July, 2008 by bookGeek

The Homeless Moon is the web site of 5 writers, Michael J. DeLuca, Jason S. Ridler, Scott H. Andrews, Erin Hoffman and Justin Howe. They have put together a chapbook of fun short stories that they have made available to order or download for free.

WordPress Theme Design

Posted on 1 July, 2008 by bookGeek

I’ve been using WordPress blogging software for about four years now. I started messing around with themes pretty early on in the process. My approach has not really changed too much over that time span. I start by going on-line and just browsing through themes that are available to down-load and use. There are tons of them available and usually I’ll hit more than one that looks pretty good. I download it, and then I start messing with it, making changes so that it perfectly fits what I want. I am not really inclined to learn all about CSS, PHP or exactly how WordPress works. I just change, save and refresh and usually I eventually get where I want to go. But now, those days are over. Tessa Blakely Silver’s new book “WordPress Theme Design” has made it possible for me to quickly learn the basics, without getting bogged down in minutiae and tons of documentation. This has been a real life-saver for someone who just wants to knock out a nice WordPress theme. I do have to admit though, I’ve learned a number of things about web design that relate to quite a bit more than just WordPress.
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Foundations of Programming – Free Ebook

Posted on 28 June, 2008 by bookGeek

A few days ago Karl Seguin made available a free e-book, Foundations of Programming. The link will take you to his blog, where there are two different links for downloading the book. It is released under a Creative Commons License.

I haven’t read the book yet, but intend to do so and do a full review. I thought it would be good to point it out now for those that might want to grab it. I do know that Seguin was an MS MVP and the book is MS centric in the technologies described, code samples, etc. This may help you decide if you want to go grab it or not. It looks to deal with rather broad issues that are applicable to other languages, so I’m not saying it is useless if you aren’t using .net or something, but that is the orientation of what I saw skimming quickly over the book.

Google Apps Hacks

Posted on 24 June, 2008 by bookGeek

It seems that it wasn’t long ago that Google was just a search company. The number of on-line products that fly under the Google moniker, today, is impressive. Google has moved well beyond it’s office-suite-like applications and excelled with everything from mapping to blogging to 3-D drawing. “Google Apps Hacks” is a new book from O’Reilly, published in conjunction with their Make magazine. This volume presents the reader with 141 hacks in an attempt to get the most out of a wide array of Google’s on-line applications. The result is a quick ride that is rather fun and while a bit shallow at times, provides a great overview of just how much is available out there.
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The Happiest Days of Our Lives

Posted on 22 June, 2008 by bookGeek

I’m a big Wil Wheaton fan. Probably the first time I ever saw him was when I went with my brother to watch Stand by Me at the movie theater. My next exposure, was of course, when Wil played Wesley Crusher on STNG. After that I mostly lost track of what Wil was doing. It wasn’t until a number of years later that I bumped into a post by Wil on slashdot, did some googling, and discovered his blog (currently though he blogs at WWdN in exile).
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