I find that end of the world stories tend to fall into two basic categories in which there’s some overlap.  Fast and fun reads, and books worthy of reading.  A book like The Road is not a fast and fun read, but it is certainly worth reading.  We’re forced to watch as a man and his son wander through a wasteland making choices no person should be faced with.  We’re reminded sentence by sentence that our moral compass can be compromised by so many outside forces and we’re forced to look deep within ourselves after reading the Road.

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse is not that kind of book.  It is fast paced, entertaining and full of twists, paced well enough to keep me coming back and light enough that I could read it easily in a few sittings.  Quick and fun with enough of a deeper meaning to make you think about what you’ve just read.  It’s irreverent enough that I was chuckling to myself while reading and good enough that I didn’t want to stop.

We follow Mortimer, who’s escaped his almost ex-wife’s desire for signatures on divorce papers by holing up in a mountain cabin just as the end of the world arrives.    After 9 years of isolation Mort re-enters society, pairs up with a cowboy emulating Buffalo Bill and finds out that civilization is all but dead, with only a series of strip clubs holding the meager threads together.

That sets us up for a wild ride where the Armageddon dollar is supreme, Joey Armageddon’s Sassy A-Go-Go clubs are holding things together between wild stretches of wasteland run by gangs and cannibals and the Red Czar, holed up in the fabled city of Atlanta wants to end it all so he can corner the market on booze.

Victor Gischler has given us a novel that’s full of guns, sex, adventure and the end of the world and still pulls off an entertaining read as we watch Mort adjust from a solitary survivor to an active, gun toting, platinum club Joey Armageddon’s card wielding member of society.  The action is non-stop and at times the plot feels a bit surreal but then in a world where strip clubs offer salvation surreal is pretty much the norm.

The Pros

Fun, fast paced and easy to read.  The plot throws heavy objects at you and changes rapidly in unexpected ways which is a good thing.  The characters are likable and human. The end of the world hasn’t been so much fun since Good Omens.

The Cons

The book could have been a bit meatier.  There is a good deal of graphic sex and violence, which while not necessarily a con, should be considered if you don’t want that sort of thing in your apocalypse.

Bottom Line

If you’re looking for an end of the world novel that combines the fast paced elements of an action flick with the survival sensibilities of a modern western with a dusting of black humor you’ll do well by Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse.

The Stats

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gischler
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Touchstone (July 8, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416552251
ISBN-13: 978-1416552253
Price: $14.00 retail ($11.20 at Amazon.com)

Technorati Tags: book, review, go-go girls, apocalypse, end of the world

The new book by Nick Sagan (son of Carl Sagan), You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised, is characterized by explanations of some of the fascinating technologies envisioned in classic science fiction along with explorations of the progress modern science has made towards achieving those visions. Classic science fiction references appear side-by-side with summaries of state of the art scientific research.

The book is divided into 5 broad chapters, each covering 10 technologies that we have made progress towards realizing. The chapters are Travel and Transportation, Computers, Cyborgs, and Robots, Communications, Weapons and Security, and Life, Health, and Sex.

The Pros

This book is very well written. Each technology is described with multiple fictional appearances as well as detailed accounts of modern advances involving that technology. I was also surprised at how realistic many of the concepts once considered impossible have become. There were also detailed diagrams and high-quality images for all of the sections, which made the content much more engaging.

The Cons

Some of the technologies in the book were much less interesting than others. In a desire to have the same number of sections in each chapter, some sections were added that probably could have been left out - language translators, watch toys, and sex toys, for example.

I definitely recommend this book. It was a quick read, and each section was engaging and interesting. The price is very reasonable, as well.

The Stats

Title: You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised
Author(s): Nick Sagan, Mark Frary, and Andy Walker
ISBN10: 1556526857
ISBN13: 978-1556526855
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Cost: $11.21 (from Amazon)
Format: Paperback, 160 pages
Published: April 1, 2008

Technorati Tags: Carl Sagan, Nick Sagan, Mark Frary, Andy Walker, science fiction, technology, books, book reviews, You Call This the Future?: The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised

In the second of three Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition core rulebook reviews I am covering the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Earlier this week I took an in-depth look at the Player’s Handbook, and you can expect a short review of the Monster Manual soon. The Player’s Handbook review discussed game mechanics and playability as well as the general presentation of Fourth Edition, and in the DMG I intend to take a critical look at the tools Fourth Edition gives the dungeon master.

Player Management and Game Basics

The first several chapters of the new DMG are a sort of “Dungeon Mastering for Dummies” guidebook, covering basics of the Dungeon Master’s role, and providing tips on how to engage players. It opens with a Bartle-style breakdown of player personality types, discussing what motivates them, what they find rewarding and what bores and angers them. The knee-jerk reaction might be to call this stereotyping, but I’ve been using Bartle-inspired pop-psychology on players in tabletop and online games for over a decade now and I find it very effective in creating a good game environment that addresses the interests of all my players. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised that the authors chose to include it.

The rest of the first section covers basic conflict resolution and gives some tips on how to deal with common problems. There’s a great section on building improvisational aids, as well as a brief introduction on the theory behind Fourth Edition’s three-tiered 30 level character progression. I’m still not completely sold on the idea but they make a good argument.

Encounters

The next three chapters discuss the DM’s role in creating and managing challenges and encounters. I found the guidelines for creating skill challenges somewhat obtuse, in that they refer frequently to tables and guidelines laid out in an earlier chapter; I spent a lot of time flipping back and forth on the first read. Fortunately the system is simple enough that with a little bit of practice you’ll have it all memorized. Combat encounters are very streamlined in Fourth Edition and the DMG doesn’t spend much time on elaborating rules. As you’ll see in the forthcoming Monster Manual review, Fourth Edition’s monsters have very clearly defined combat roles, and most of the chapter on combat addresses NPC tactics. Although somewhat arbitrary in nature, the roles they define and the tactics they suggest are a good jumping-off point for encounter design, especially considering the highly strategic nature of the combat system. They provide outlines of a few encounter templates for quick plug-and-play action when you’re short on time, but the system is robust enough to allow for plenty of tweaking and creativity.

Game Design

Most of the latter half of the book is devoted to campaign and adventure design. I found this section somewhat disappointing. Dungeons and Dragons has always tried to walk the middle road between providing a generic game system and a full-fledged campaign setting, and they continue that trend in Fourth Edition with the typically bland outcome. The DMG presumes you want to comply with the defaults provided in the Player’s Handbook and don’t even touch on the theory behind class, race or cosmology design. This is fine for DMs who just want to run a light and simple Tolkienesque game, but it leaves those of us who enjoy creating rich and unique campaign settings out in the cold. If you intend to create your own races, classes, powers, or invent your own religion and cosmology you are on your own.

Once you get past that issue they do give you a good breakdown on creating adventures or customizing them from packaged adventure books, as well as tips on campaign design. They don’t give you a full campaign setting so you’re expected to come up with geography, social and political schemes (beyond the basics described in the race entries in the Player’s Handbook) and all the other things that flesh out a world, but they do give you some good advice to help get it done.

DM’s Toolbox and Fallcrest

Last but not least is a chapter devoted to monster and NPC design, a small entry on house rules and a system for generating random dungeons and encounters, and then another chapter detailing a sample starting area called Fallcrest. This is pretty standard stuff, so I won’t get into it here. I’ve used random generators for fun on-the-fly games before to kill an afternoon or a long road trip, but for serious games I don’t recommend them.

Fallcrest is everything you would expect in a generic starting adventure: a small, remote village with a few notable characters and a low-level monster problem awaiting destruction by a band of inexperienced heroes. It contains a great selection of maps and a few solid encounters in an easily readable format with plenty of tips and advice for new DMs. I doubt an experienced gaming group will get much out of Fallcrest, but they’re not the target audience.

Conclusion

The first half of the DMG is a great read for anyone interested in running a roleplaying game, with solid advice from experienced DMs and plenty of effective techniques for game management. I would suggest at least browsing through it even if you’re not planning to run a Fourth Edition game.
I could take or leave the rest of the book. It leaves me wanting either a fully fleshed out campaign setting or a thorough and detailed guide to world building. It’s clear that WotC wants to reach a broader audience with Fourth Edition, and they may have hit on the right combination of depth and open-endedness for newbie game designers. I just can’t help feeling they could have done more.

Technorati Tags: dungeons and dragons, dnd, d&d, fourth edition, dungeon master’s guide, dmg, review

WotC’s Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition introduces a slew of changes to the venerable franchise, from a new modern look and feel to streamlined gameplay rules and a completely redesigned class and skill system. Today I take a look at the Player’s Handbook, and I will review the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual in upcoming articles. After running a couple sessions, I’ll follow up with play impressions.

Fourth Edition has taken quite a lot of criticism, both because of the radical changes it’s undergone since Third Edition and because of the nature of the changes made - toward a simpler and more broadly appealing game. The first thing I heard about it from friends and fellow gamers is that looked like World of Warcraft on the tabletop. As a WoW burnout myself, and a vocal critic of Third Edition’s many shortcomings, I went in with a healthy amount of skepticism. To my surprise I was really impressed with the game’s focus and direction.

In this review I’m taking the approach that Fourth Edition is a complete game deserving to stand or fall on its own merits, so if you’re looking for a detailed comparison with previous incarnations of Dungeons and Dragons you’ll have to look elsewhere. At its heart it’s still a d20 system game, but beyond that it’s all apples and oranges.

Presentation

The new edition eschews the leather-bound tome look in favor of a more modern layout, with clean lines and simple decorative elements. It’s not quite as captivating as some of the really well-designed gaming manuals we’ve seen in recent years (here’s looking at you, Exalted 2nd Edition), but it delivers on the most important aspect: usability. Full color page-and-a-half paintings mark the beginning of each chapter with high fantasy action scenes, and smaller illustrations are scattered liberally throughout the book. The authors made great use of color and iconography in identifying important blocks, such as character powers and tables. Information is well organized and easy to access with an informative table of contents and extensive index.

Tables or lists of class powers by level would have been nice, as would an organized collection of important tables in a central area. As a PDF user with a hyperlinked table of contents and a bookmarks sidebar I don’t worry too much about these issues myself, but if you’re paging through a hard copy your mileage may vary.

Game Mechanics

The core mechanic is a simple roll a die, add numeric modifiers system familiar to almost any gamer. I’ve always been a fan of dice-pool systems for their smoother advancement and statistical spread, but the designers seem to have put in a lot of effort to ensure the difficulty of tasks keeps pace with character advancement. Characters gain their abilities almost strictly according to class selections, which is locked in at the time of character creation, and advance by level. This leads to a lack of character variety, but the selection of powers and feats available let players give their characters at least a little flavor.

Dungeons and Dragons has always been a combat heavy game and Fourth Edition continues that trend, with a reinvigorated focus on strategy. The game requires the use of a grid and a system to keep track of positioning and movement, and many character powers incorporate tactical movement into their effects. They’re not shy about pushing their miniatures products, but they do offer advice on simpler alternatives for players short on cash or shelf space. You may have heard this about 3rd Edition and other roleplaying games, but this time they really mean it: you are not going to get much out of Fourth Edition without a battle grid.

Non-combat activities have been streamlined and the skill system is incredibly simple - a character chooses a handful of trained skills which provide a flat bonus to his rolls. Fourth Edition introduces a few new mechanics to spice up non-combat encounters called skill challenges and rituals. In a skill challenge the Dungeon Master introduces a complicated scenario such as infiltrating a palace or discovering the location of a hidden temple, and players take turns using any relevant skills to advance the party toward the goal. The object is to accumulate a number of successful rolls before exceeding a maximum number of failures, and each participating character must act on his turn.

Rituals are sorcerous ceremonies conducted by any character with the appropriate instructions, though the magic-oriented classes excel at obtaining and performing them. They involve large investments of time and money and produce powerful effects from raising the dead to useful abilities for all participants, like underwater breathing. You’ll find most of the group utility-oriented and non-combat magic in rituals, a two-edged sword that allows a non-standard party to overcome common game-stopping obstacles but also reduces dependence and demand for traditional spellcasters.

Playability

Fourth Edition adheres to the philosophy that the rules should be simple, streamlined and easy to remember. Every rule has many exceptions, but the exceptions are encapsulated in powers and other abilities. When a power violates a gameplay rule it spells out the exception explicitly, so there is no need to memorize a complicated list of exceptions or special mechanics that may apply in odd circumstances. In this sense it reminds me of collectible card games with their extremely simple core rules and myriad special mechanics introduced by individual cards. Character creation is straightforward - allocate points to the six primary stats, choose a class, pick a few powers and a handful of skills and you’re ready to roll. We’ll see how well this all plays out in the upcoming game play article.

The game provides little to no mechanical support for theatrics or roleplaying, character personality traits and quirks. A few small concessions are made for creative problem solving, but for the most part the parameters are laid out and don’t allow for exceptions. Both the PHB and the Dungeon Master’s Guide (more on that in the next article) talk a lot about how lively description and interaction make the game more fun and engaging, but the words seem to ring hollow. As a long time GM I know better than to think roleplaying is enough of a reward in itself to keep players enthusiastic.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a roleplaying game mixing the best aspects of tactical turn-based strategy, collectible card games, and the heroic action of a typical MMO, Fourth Edition is right up your alley. The strategic elements of the game are strong enough to keep the intellect stimulated without taxing capacity for rules memorization, and the emphasis on movement and position should appeal to wargamers and tactical RPG fans.

On the other hand if you prefer your games gritty and political with a heavy emphasis on character development and roleplaying you’re likely to be disappointed. It’s a step up from a miniatures game, and wont’ suffer from the problem of anonymity that plagues the modern MMO, but it really doesn’t supply the carrot or the stick to draw out shy players or reward the enthusiastic for their efforts. The good news is that there are plenty of great games out there that do; in an upcoming review I’ll tell you all about the Burning Wheel, a system on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Technorati Tags: dungeons and dragons, fourth edition, fourth, 4th, review, roleplaying, role playing, role, play, player’s handbook, PHB, D&D

The Way Toys Work is a book that explores the origins and inner workings of 50 popular toys.  A guide on how to recreate simple versions of each toy is also included, as well as various science experiments that can be performed with them.

The book is divided into 50 chapters - one for each toy.  Each chapter includes sections on history, function, dismantlement, and duplication.

My opinion of this book oscillated between excitement and disappointment.  But as I eventually recognized the goal of the authors and who their target audience was, I became very satisfied with the book.

The Pros

What the book does especially well is describe the origins of each toy.  I was a little shocked to discover how many popular toys were created by people with no toy-making experience.  I found the histories genuinely interesting.  I also enjoyed the in-depth explanations of how many of the toys worked, especially ones that involved scientific principles more complex than gravity and aerodynamics (the Dunking Bird is powered by methylene chloride vapor, for example).

The Cons

It is difficult to tell who would best benefit from reading this book.  The brief histories and simple related crafts would best benefit school children, but the in-depth scientific analyses would frequently be over their heads and better suited for older geeks.  Also, each chapter is disconnected and it is sometimes difficult to read the book for more than a few chapters.  I found it best to leave the book sitting out and read a chapter or two when I was bored.

I eventually decided that this book has a place both in the classroom and at home.  Children can benefit from the brief explanations of how their favorite toys work, and adults can benefit from the interesting backgrounds and inner workings of their childhood playthings.

I would certainly recommend this book to geeks of all ages.

The Stats

Title: The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More
Author(s): Ed and Woody Sobey
ISBN10: 1556527454
ISBN13: 978-1556527456
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Cost: $10.17 (from Amazon)
Format: Paperback, 178 pages
Published: May 1, 2008

Technorati Tags: books, book reviews, The Way Toys Work, The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More, Ed Sobey, Woody Sobey

The revamped Tor website includes a new shortstory by Mr. Scalzi, After the Coup. Set in the same universe as Old Man’s War, its a short, fun romp that details a ‘diplomatic’ adventure by one of the bit characters in his main series. A very fun read.

Technorati Tags: scifi, fantasy, tor, books, entertainment, cavtroop

That’s the premise behind Day by Day Armageddon by J. L. Bourne.  The book follows the first person narrative of our protagonist as he learns of a growing threat to humanity and keeps an almost daily journal of the rise of a huge zombie population and the fall of humanity.  This book has been out for a bit but I’ve just recently gotten my hands on a copy.

I should say before continuing on with this review that I’m a big fan of Zombies.  I love a good zombie movie but it’s rare that I find a decent book about the subject I can sit down and enjoy.  To be a decent book about zombies, it can’t just be a smattering of gore and horror – it’s got to be fun, interesting, though provoking and like the presence of the undead themselves, should hold a mirror up to our society.  A previous exception would be World War Z.

Day by Day Armageddon does a decent job of hitting my high points and it’s an enjoyable and fairly quick read.  Bourne’s protagonist is likable and I found him taking actions that I approved of, rather than the horror norm of hear-a-noise-in-dark-basement-go-investigate-in-swimsuit.  This guy’s a survivor, who makes smart choices when he can.  We meet a few other survivors as well, some we cheer for and some form antagonists to both the narrator and the undead.

The author draws from the ‘traditional’ modern zombie lore.  Slow moving undead with little intelligence bent only on finding and devouring living folk like you and me.  Bourne does throw in a few twists when it comes to the undead but you won’t find it a huge departure from the shambling horde.

There are a few sticking points – mainly the images included in the book and the large number of typos encountered by the reader.  The images are grainy at best and in my opinion serve to detract focus from the story.  I’d find myself constantly glancing at them when they appeared, to my annoyance.  They typos were another niggling annoyance.  There are quite a lot of them which would jump off the page just when things were heating up.  These are however just annoyances and really didn’t detract too much from my overall experience of the book.  The story is tight and fast paced.  I found myself staying up a bit later than I normally would to finish the book, which took me perhaps four hours to read.

The ending isn’t really an ending, as this is supposed to be the first of several books.  You are left hanging.  I do hope that another novel is forthcoming as I’d be glad to find out what happens to our Navy man and his small band of survivors though I understand that Bourne is currently on active duty in the real world military so we may have to wait a bit for this to happen.

If you’re a fan of horror fiction, particularly that features zombies, the folks who fight to keep their lives and a good bit of detail about how they do this, then you’ll enjoy Day by Day Armageddon.  At $15 I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read.

Technorati Tags: zombies, armageddon, braaaaaains, books, self published, reviews

Here is a concise, step by step guide to creating virtual honeypots. Honeypots are sweetened servers or services made available to the public where those seeking to compromise systems (either bots, malware or actual human beings taking a gander) can find vulnerabilities and then exploit them. Honeypots serve to either track and collect information about such attacks or serve as literal traps, netting the bad guys and tracing back to their origins.

Topics in the book range from full fledged virtual OS instances to attract malware and wrongdoers, creating low interaction honeypots to simulate single instances of vulnerabilities (rather than an entire system to compromise) to using various pre-packed tools to attract and trap malware, bots and hackers.

Virtual Honeypots is divided into 12 chapters, and includes a bibliography and index.

Chapter 1 is an introduction to networking concepts and honeypot concepts. Chapter 2 focuses on high-interaction honeypots – traps that appear like entire open systems just begging to be messed with. Chapter 3 deals with low-interaction honeypots, which are designed to mirror services such as apache or samba which are available over the net. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on honeyd, a prepackaged honeypot service. Chapter 6 deals with collecting malware with honeypots. Chapter 7 looks into hybrid systems such as Collapsar, Potemkin and RolePlayer. Chapter 8 looks at client honeypots. Chapter 9 shows you how to detect other honeypots. Chapters 10 through 12 cover some real life case studies, tracking botnets and analyzing malware you may collect.

Virtual Honeypots opens in the preface with a quick time line of an actual attack on a honeypot, in which a remote user breaks into a virtual machine, downloads several scanning and password guessing tools and then begins to scan other networks, also downloading a movie in the process.

From there the book is full of step by step, practical information for setting up just about any type of honeypot or honeynet (a network of, in this case, virtual honeypots emulating different server or client installs). Further, it can be used as a practical field guide for analyzing the data collected through the use of honeypots. Not only will this book guide you in setting up traps and analysis about the bad guy’s behavior, but it will teach you how to follow their tracks on your systems and take steps to prevent further intrusions on production computers.

Another extremely useful area covered in this book is the ability to actively seek out sites which will cause harm. Using client honeypots you can set virtual client installs to probing the web for sites which contain malware and other bad things and then note them, allowing you to take appropriate action.

Virtual Honeypots is an authoritative guide to intelligence gathering, analyzing and deterring many different kinds of online threats, from simple malware outbreaks to determined and skilled hackers this book can guide you through watching, catching and stopping them all.

Technorati Tags: review, book, honeypot, virtual, honeynet

Once again I am impressed with a No Starch Press book. Practical Packet Analysis is a wonderful, simple to use and well laid out guide to getting useful information out of captured packets. Wireshark is the tool used to capture and analyze the data. What this book does is open up the world of the packet, showing what information can be gleaned from them and how to apply this to solve problems you’ll encounter in the real world. This is a great book for someone just diving into network administration or someone who’s going to be responsible for basic network troubleshooting.

While not a huge book, PPA covers a lot of information. It is composed of 11 chapters, an index, a forward and afterward.

Chapter 1, Packet Analysis and Network Basics is just that – an introduction to the basics (including the dreaded 7 layer OSI cake).

Chapter 2 – Tapping into the Wire discusses where a packet capture program or device should sit to maximize benefits.

Chapter 3 – Introducing Wireshark and Chapter 4 – Working with Captured Packets covers the basics of Wireshark, a packet capture and analysis suite which is free to download and use.

Chapter 5 – Advanced Wireshark Features covers just that – from diving into network protocols to input/output graphing.

Chapter 6 – Common Protocols is an introduction to such things as ARP, DHCP, TCP/IP, and the various ways they talk to network nodes.

Chapter 7 through 10 cover basic packet analysis as used to troubleshoot common problems. From dropped connections, slow networks, hijacked browsers, unreachable ports, determining when the issues actually isn’t a network issue (and may in fact occur somewhere between the chair and the keyboard) and plenty of other scenarios.

Chapter 11 – Further Reading is the shortest chapter in the book, just a few pages long, but has a ton of interesting links that can further understanding of networks, packet analysis and diagnosing problems.

Along with the book itself, No Starch has resources available online (which are detailed in the book as well) at http://www.nostarch.com/packet.htm in the form of captured packets. These packets form the examples in the book and it’s helpful to be able to download and view them as you’re learning to work with them.

As an open source enthusiast who’s used Wireshark before, I’m glad that Sanders has chosen it as his tool. It’s quite robust, relatively easy to use and best of all it’s free. With this book and Wireshark you’re well on your way to troubleshooting networking problems as a hobby or professionally.
Sanders writes with a clear, laid-back style that’s easy to follow. The book is designed to introduce networking concepts to the reader first using diagrams and pictures where possible and then move seamlessly into capturing, viewing and analyzing real network traffic. It’s not a hard read (I finished it in one night) and read once allows for easy access to network analysis. Sitting down with PPA for an hour on my home network allowed me to find all sorts of interesting bits of information simply by following the examples. After investing about 4 hours total using examples and techniques in PPA I was able to diagnose an existing malware infection on my XP machine and watch the effects of turning on and off ports via my firewall.

Don’t mistake PPA as a be all, end all guide to monitoring your networks and solving every problem down the line. Do know that it’s a great introduction to the world of networks, protocols and the individual packets that make up all of the network traffic we come across. If you’re interesting in dipping your toes into packet analysis and putting yourself in a position where you can learn a bunch and keep on learning on your own once you’ve built up your foundation, then this is a great book for you.

Technorati Tags: ppa, practical packet analysis, no starch press, packets, network troubleshooting, wireshark

Ubuntu for Non-Geeks is a pain-free, project-based, get-things-done guidebook. It even says so right on the cover. As with all of the No Starch Press books I’ve encountered before, Ubuntu for Non-Geeks is a clearly written and easily read book, packed with lots of information for the first time or novice Ubuntu user. It’s timely, covering Ubuntu 7.04 and has plenty of information to get the new Ubuntu initiate up and running without drowning them in Linux trivia.

The book consists of 18 chapters, The first three chapters introduce the reader to some basic Linux concepts and walk them through installing and first starting up Ubuntu, including a look at the live CD and a desktop walk through.

Chapters four through seven cover getting connected, downloading and installing new programs, files and disks and your system’s look and feel.

In chapter 8 we dip briefly into the command line, followed up by four more chapters concerned with customization and peripheral installs, including printers and customizing fonts and a discussion of Automatix and Wine for Windows emulation.

Chapters thirteen through seventeen are concerned with the most used and more productive aspects of Ubuntu, including the office suite, Gimp, using multimedia and transferring it to your iPod, Picasa and other tools.

Chapter eighteen, the final chapter in the book is concerned with security, including firewalls and anti-virus for Linux.

Author Grant has a great, friendly style of writing which clearly shows his enjoyment both in the subjects of Ubuntu and computers and in teaching those subjects to others. You can pick up this book at any point and dive right in without feeling like you have to back track to cover previous topics without which you’d be lost. Equally good is the ability to pick up this book and be engaged from the introduction, no mean feat when writing a technical book.

Grant’s book sports plenty of step by step examples of how to get things done, which is essential in keeping a new Ubuntu user happy with their system. To be able to pick up a book, spend a few minutes with your machine and be able to accomplish a task that was previously a mystery, utterly frustrating or often times both is a godsend to the user.

If you’re new to the world of Ubuntu and are thinking of taking the plunge, or if you’re a seasoned Linux user who’s looking for just the right book to encourage your friends and family to give it a try you would do very well in getting a copy of Ubuntu for Non-Geeks. It has everything you’ll need from the CD on up. The book is highly accessible and will do a lot to dispel the new user’s fear of the unknown and reduce frustration levels when trying to accomplish a once familiar task in a very new environment.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, non-geek, no starch press, linux, book review

ASP.net AJAX in Action contains just about anything and everything you’d ever want to know about developing AJAX enabled web services. Despite the title sounding a bit complex, the book itself is accessible and easy to read.

The book is divided into four parts consisting of 13 chapters which bring the reader through the first steps of developing with ASP.net through mastering AJAX techniques.

Part 1, ASP.NET AJAX Basics introduces the concept of AJAX (Asychronous JavaScript and XML), walks through Microsoft’s Ajax library, touches on JavaScript as used by AJAX developers, and introduces the beginnings of making dynamically changing web pages.

Part 2, Advanced Techniques, delves further into developing dynamic pages with Microsoft Ajax components, controls and using the control toolkit.

Part 3, ASP.NET AJAX Futures looks specifically at XML-script and Drag and Drop techniques.

Part 4, Mastering ASP.NET AJAX takes a look at extending the Microsoft Ajax library.

ASP.NET AJAX in Action dives right into the procedures and code that allow developers to leverage AJAX for dynamic web content. The authors have a straight forward approach to developing skills by learning and using them. In the first few chapters the reader will find themselves working with AJAX and understanding the development of dynamic content.

There are plenty of examples throughout the book which will guide the reader from simple development through much more complicated tasks. I’ve always been a fan of learning by doing and this book certainly doesn’t shirk from putting code into the readers hands to work with. There are plenty of examples which will help an AJAX and ASP.NET developer work through common problems.

This book is best suited for someone with at least moderate programming ability. It’s not designed to teach JavaScript or XML formats but it is designed to teach someone with some knowledge of the former how to leverage ASP.NET to create effective, cutting edge AJAX powered content.