bookGeek – Page 6

Hackerteen: Internet Blackout Vol. 1

Posted on 16 June, 2008 by bookGeek

Hackerteen is an interesting new project, a graphic novel being published by O’Reilly. What makes it interesting is not just that this is a rather new direction for O’Reilly but that this is, to my knowledge, a rather unique publication in that it seeks to educate teenage youth about an array of issues ranging from privacy, free software, security and the impact of politics on personal freedom as it relates to the use of technology. Making topics like that exciting, and understandable to a young person may sound like a tall order, and I think it is.
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Visual Communication in Digital Design

Posted on 22 May, 2008 by bookGeek

I remember the first time I saw a program I had written after the interface had been revamped by a designer. I had been pretty happy with what I had made. It worked very well and met the client’s requirements. It was extremely functional and I thought it didn’t look bad either. But when I saw the new interface, not functionally different, just so much better looking, I was really blown away. My application had gone from useful to cool. (That might be a slight exaggeration, it was still just a database app but it sure looked cool to me.) Since then I’ve learned to primarily leave the user interface work to the experts in that arena, and I stick to the getting the functionality in place. But sometimes I don’t have the luxury of a design team at my disposal. Or when I do, I still need to be able to talk to them and discuss what is going on. I found Dr. Ji Young Park’s new book “Visual Communication in Design” to be a friendly and accessible introductory primer in visual design.

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Site Upgrade Test

Posted on 17 May, 2008 by bookGeek

Just checking to see that the upgrade went well.

Groovy Recipes

Posted on 21 April, 2008 by bookGeek

The Groovy language is relatively new on the scene. I confess that I had not even heard of it until early this year when I came across a Developer Works article about unit testing with Groovy, written in 2004. So I am a little late to the party, but the article did intrigue me and the new addition to the Pragmatic series, “Groovy Recipes” came along at just the right time for me to jump on board. This book is a no-nonsense, solid introduction to groovy. It is specifically written with the experienced Java programmer in mind, but I found it useful even though my Java experience is primarily as a hobbyist. Davis brings his extensive experience with Groovy and Java to the table and has written an excellent primer and reference that is fully worthy of the Pragmatic label.

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Infected – Free e-book – Update

Posted on 28 March, 2008 by bookGeek

The free pdf deal is over. Hope you got it if you wanted it.

I just found out about this and it is only good for a couple more days. I read about it over at Whatever. Scott Sigler’s Infected is available as a free download in pdf format. I haven’t read it, just downloaded it now, so I have no idea what it is like. But it is Sci-Fi and it is free. The site said the download will be available until March 31st. That’s Monday, so get hopping.

Spin

Posted on 28 March, 2008 by bookGeek

I remember the first time that I read “Childhood’s End”, the classic by Aurthur C. Clarke. Clarke wrote the story well before I was born and I came across it at a young age. This tale of the end and beginning of the world had a profound effect and I was entranced. As I recently read Robert Charles Wilson’s “Spin”, I was reminded once again of that same sense of awe and the weight of humanity and its dreams. It was just as I finished the book that I saw in the news that Clarke had died, and I guess that cemented the association in my mind. “Spin” is an incredible tale, and not just a copy or derivative of Childhood’s End. In fact what they have in common is a mood or sense of gravity, not plot or devices. That Wilson won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with this book is absolutely no surprise.
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A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux

Posted on 22 March, 2008 by bookGeek

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.”

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Mistborn

Posted on 8 March, 2008 by bookGeek

I read this book after receiving a free copy from Tor’s program giving out an e-book a week. Sanderson has gained quite a bit of attention recently after being named the author that would finish Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I never got into the Wheel of Time books, so I wasn’t so hot to find out about the writing of the person who would be completing the saga, but I was interested a little more, knowing that Sanderson’s work was going to be even that much more under the watchful eye of a large set of committed fans.

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