Conor O’Clery’s Moscow 25 December 1991 follows a notably growing trend for picking a pivot point in history and revolving round it to find a popular audience (witness 1066, 1421, 1434, 1491, 1492 etc. All good books by and large but adopting a very similar tact). The date provides a recognizable focus and then the space is open for provide the background and the aftermath in a popular fashion. O’Clery breaks the mold though in a most engaging fashion with the book. Read the rest of this entry »
strikingly random thoughts and 'maximum data existentialisation'
This is one mighty manual! There’s certainly nothing missing from this one. iPhone The Missing Manual by David Pogue is the gold standard for iPhone users. I decided to take a look at this one principally to make sure I know what I need to about PhotoStream and some of the new iOS 5 features. Colour me impressed. This book is far more really than one could hope for. Now in its Fifth iteration, this is the manual brought up to date for iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S. It is the most comprehensive and reference source available for new and existing users of iPhones from the 3gs onward. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, hot off the digital press and literally out of the box comes a handy manual for the Amazon Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire: Out of the Box provides a comprehensive look at a variety of the features of the Android-enabled Amazon tablet. The volume is short and concise, but throughly addresses the Fire’s features. It is copiously illustrated and provides a great overview of what makes the Fire special. This is useful manual for those who possible feel intimidated by the rather unique Kindle Fire interface. Read the rest of this entry »
If there was ever a product needing a manual, frankly it’s Google Plus. It remains a rather obtuse beast — at least to my way of seeing things. Google Plus: The Missing Manual attempts to remedy this by providing a comprehensive review of all the possible interactions you’d have with the web service from a user perspective. So, do I feel like I know the service any better after reading the book. No, not really, unfortunately maybe it’s just the case that G+ doesn’t work the way I do. The book makes a valiant effort, but I have a sense that I personally would be better served by a pure cookbook approach. Read the rest of this entry »
Mapping with Drupal by Alan Palazzolo and Thomas Turnbull provides a hands-on, in-depth exploration of a the most popular tools for turning your favorite CMS into a geospatially enabled data management system. Contextualising and demonstrating modules such as Geofield, GMap and Location modules and the OpenLayers framework, Palazzolo and Turnbull provide a superbly crafted guidebook to allow a user to quickly get up to speed and understand the strengths and weaknesses of available solutions.
Head First by Jeff Siarto is one of a superb series of Head First books that adopt a visual approach to teaching. This particular volume is very well done and offers a deeply basic introduction to setting cup, configuring and managing a WordPress blog. It takes a new user through the basics and then provides a hands-on practical experience with all the appropriate skills to meet basic to intermediate user demands. It is well written and comprehensively delivered and if you are either a visual learner or a person who does not want to sit down with a stock manual than this is the approach for you. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a bit of a diversion from recent reviews. Keeping Score: Project Management for the Pros by Frank Ryle is a lively, yet deceptively prescient look at adapting a variety of management styles to the PM process. Using a narrative centered on golf — both because it offers a shared passion to the project managers and also as superb metaphor for exploration of the PM process — Ryle delivers an engaging exploration of current thinking in project management. The short book explores a variety of ways of seeing the processes, techniques and approaches to PM (and I use these terms some trepidation as their precise meanings are an important aspect to this topic). Read the rest of this entry »
The premise of the Information Diet by Clay Johnson is: ‘What if we started managing our information consumption like we managed our food consumption?’ And so it begins. This is a fascinating book framed as an open discussion in which Johnson carries along this metaphor of information intake being likened to nutritional sustenance. The initial chapters explore overeating and the obesity of America, but the reader is increasingly wondering how far the author planning on carrying this overeating consumption metaphor. As the narrative starts to move into the realm of information provision and the ‘industrialization of information’ the author’s intentions become clearer. The case study of AOL’s Blogsmith software that allows for the measurement of information’s impact on revenue and profitability highlights is quite fascinating and paints a picture of information becoming turned into ‘fast food’ — that is easily absorbed, desired, but of limited or destructive nutritional value. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a superbly fashioned instruction course for those who want to go beyond photographic snaps and start to think about what makes a photo particularly remarkable. Although it won’t provide a simple formula to turn you into a photographic expert, what it does do is provide a series of ‘assignments’ focussing of particular aspects that can be explored to both enjoy getting deeper into the photographic experience, but also moving beyond the snapshot. Ten Photo Assignments looks to aspects such as lighting, macro-photography, exposure and the various ways that the components of a good digital camera work together to create the image. Read the rest of this entry »
The *Big* Data Glossary is actually a relatively *short* book, best enjoyed as an eBook in my estimation. This volume is similar to a number of recent releases from O’Reilly that have moved from being deep and comprehensive to providing a higher-level taste-test overview from a more conceptual standpoint. In this instance, the Big Data Glossary by Pete Warden could also be described as an annotated bibliography of the variety of tools and platforms recently emerged to work with linked data or large and rich datasets.