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I wrote this book, and I have to agree with most parts of this review. There’s a good story behind it, but here’s the short version:

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The book was rushed. I was given four months to do it all, and for the first three I didn’t hear a single word from the editor about the content. None of the promised guidance was forthcoming, and after a month of no contact I believed they had dropped the idea so I stopped working on it.

Suddenly, a month before the due date, they popped back up asking for the 50% complete text and 100% of the images. Say what? So I wrote 20,000 words in a week, enslaved some writer friends to help out, and started cropping out sprite images like a man posessed.

It worked too, I got it done and wrote some amazing stuff. Unfortunately the publisher decided time was too tight to actually use it, so several articles that were to be cut ’cause they sucked made it in, several good ones that were to replace them never did, images that were delivered for specific articles were ignored, random images were thrown in all over the place, and they didn’t seem to bother labelling any images in the last quarter of the book.

It’s not my fault! I’ve got a few copies of the book I can’t even bring myself to read ’cause it was such a mess at the end.

I take full responsibility for many errors, and for the quality of the text. I totally screwed up by dropping the project for months at a time, but I really don’t think I’d be the only person to make the assumption when the editor doesn’t reply to your emails for six weeks.

The author goes on to list some online articles that might satisfy people who were disappointed with the book. Sounds like the author is an honorable guy. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to write another book and spend more time on it.

Fellow programmers, beware! Graphic designers have been invading our territory. A flood of books have been released aimed at artists who want to learn web development skills. Oh, it starts innocently enough, usually with CSS and XHTML. But soon they are learning JavaScript, PHP, and even SQL! What have we techies fought back with? What material is there for us to boost our artistic right-brain power? Sadly, our motley collection of Gimp tutorials alone will not win this battle. We need something stronger. We need to understand the principles of graphic design. But the shelves have been empty of books that make this topic accessible to tech-minded people. Well, empty until now.

Of course, being my own site, I’m paranoid about interacting with the ad in any fashion for fear of getting banned from AdSense. Is this a new thing Google is experimenting with? Is it effective?

UPDATE: Several people have told me that this is what happens when AdSense can’t match your content to ads. Hmmm. I’d never seen it before. Carry on….nothing to see here.

On most networks diagrams I’ve seen, the internet looks like a cloud. Sometimes it’s a fluffy white cloud. Other times it’s a dark ominous cloud. Regardless of the artistic style, the depiction usually conveys the mystery and danger of putting your company’s network on a global information grid next to a billion users, kind of like those old maps with dragons drawn at strategic places in the ocean. Not surprisingly, corporations spend much time and energy protecting themselves from The Outside World. In Enemy at the Water Cooler, Brian Contos argues that just as many resources should be spent on defending against insider threats. Will this book help you detect the enemies at your water cooler?

If you’ve browsed the web design section of any bookstore lately, you’ve seen him staring at you. The blue hat. The mustache. The blinding neon background. He’s Jeffrey Zeldman, publisher of the influential web development magazine, ‘A List Apart’ and author of the book Designing With Web Standards (DWWS). The first edition of the DWWS was published in 2003, and now 2006 brings us an updated 2nd edition. In a market flooded with XHTML, CSS, and web standards books, is DWWS 2nd Ed. still relevant?

Further discussion of mustaches, goatees, beards, and facial hair in general can be found here.

Google depends on new content constantly being added to the web. No Google initiative has done a better job at encouraging new content than the AdSense/AdWords programs. Google Advertising Tools by Harold Davis is a book that teaches you to use these tools effectively.

“Why Software Sucks professes to be a book for computer users, not programmers. Author David Platt wants to be the informant, pulling back the curtain on software development so mere mortals can get a glimpse inside the sausage factory. Platt flaunts his geek cred, all the while implying that he’s not one of those geeks. But ultimately, trite observations and a condescending tone left me wishing that the book would end long before it did.”