Best of
Geek

2006

About Time 1: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who


Tat Wood - 2006
    Written by Lawrence Miles (Faction Paradox) and long-time sci-fi commentator Tat Wood, About Time focuses on the continuity of Doctor Who (its characters, alien races and the like), but also examines the show as a work of social commentary. In particular, Miles and Wood dissect the politics and social issues that shaped the show during its unprecedented 26-year run (from 1963 to 1989), detailing how the issues of the day influenced this series. As part of this grand opus, About Time 1 examines Doctor Who Seasons 1 to 3 (1963 to 1966) -- the show's every beginnings, with William Hartnell in the lead role. Among other things, About Time 1 answers such vitally important Who questions as Where (and When) is Gallifrey? and Why Couldn't the BBC Just Have Spent More Money?

Linux Administration Handbook


Evi Nemeth - 2006
    Several things make this one stand out. Here's the most important: Linux Administration Handbook is designed for administrators working in industrial-strength production environments. It never glosses over the "subtleties" that can get you in big trouble. It doesn't stint on technical detail. It's never satisfied with restating the man pages. And it's full of war stories from folks who've been there. Evi Nemeth and her coauthors: Boy, have they ever been there. (Just ask any gray-bearded Unix sysadmin about their earlier, legendary Unix System Administration Handbook.) There's only been one downside to Linux Administration Handbook: It's been nearly five years since it was written. Well, that flaw's just been remedied. The new Second Edition has been systematically revised for the latest administration tools (think Nagios and LVM). It's carefully targeted at today's five most widely used distributions: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.3, Fedora Core 5, SUSE Linux 10.2, Debian 3.2 "Etch," and Ubuntu 6.06. The result: a book you can rely on for the next five years. Rely on to do what? Just about everything. You'll find chapters on booting and shutting down; "rootly" powers; controlling processes; the Linux filesystem; on adding new users. You'll learn the most efficient ways to perform backups. How to make sense of syslogs and log files. Everything you need to know about drivers, the kernel, networking, NFS -- and Internet services, from web hosting to email. Nemeth & Company bring their experience to bear on troubleshooting, performance optimization, print management, security, Windows interoperability, even "policies and politics." Whatever Linux books you already own, if you depend on Linux to run efficiently and reliably, you need this one, too. Bill Camarda, from the December 2006 href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/newslet... Only

Peter Jackson: A Film-Maker's Journey


Brian Sibley - 2006
    Now, he is the newest member of Hollywood's elite fellowship, with his name on the most successful movie trilogy of all time. Written with Jackson's full participation, this extensive biography, illustrated with never-before-seen photos from Jackson's personal collection, tells the inside story of how a New Zealander became Hollywood's hottest property—from the early cult classics, through Academy Award-winning success with Kate Winslet's Heavenly Creatures, the abandoned King Kong remake, and the filming of The Lord of the Rings—a project which was abandoned two years into pre-production, rejected by most of the other studios, and then picked up by New Line Cinema in the biggest gamble in film history. Drawing upon interviews with 50 of Peter Jackson's colleagues and contemporaries, author Brian Sibley paints a portrait of a true auteur, a man gifted with single-minded determination and an artist's vision. Jackson himself is both revealing and insightful about his entire filmmaking life, from his first childhood steps filming in Super 8 to the grand realisation of his life's dream: King Kong. Together, these joint narratives provide a truly unique and compelling insight into one of the finest cinematic minds at work today.

Kingdom Hearts Ii: The Complete Official Guide: V. 2


Klaus-Dieter Hartwig - 2006
    Dispatched SAME DAY.

Bond on Set: Filming Casino Royale


Greg Williams - 2006
    Premier showbiz photographer Greg Williams creates a unique visual record for the making of the MGM film, scheduled for release on November 17. Full color.

Making Sense of Data: A Practical Guide to Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Mining


Glenn J. Myatt - 2006
    The author provides clear explanations that guide the reader to make timely and accurate decisions from data in almost every field of study. A step-by-step approach aids professionals in carefully analyzing data and implementing results, leading to the development of smarter business decisions. With a comprehensive collection of methods from both data analysis and data mining disciplines, this book successfully describes the issues that need to be considered, the steps that need to be taken, and appropriately treats technical topics to accomplish effective decision making from data. Readers are given a solid foundation in the procedures associated with complex data analysis or data mining projects and are provided with concrete discussions of the most universal tasks and technical solutions related to the analysis of data, including: * Problem definitions * Data preparation * Data visualization * Data mining * Statistics * Grouping methods * Predictive modeling * Deployment issues and applications Throughout the book, the author examines why these multiple approaches are needed and how these methods will solve different problems. Processes, along with methods, are carefully and meticulously outlined for use in any data analysis or data mining project. From summarizing and interpreting data, to identifying non-trivial facts, patterns, and relationships in the data, to making predictions from the data, Making Sense of Data addresses the many issues that need to be considered as well as the steps that need to be taken to master data analysis and mining.

50 Robots to Draw & Paint


Keith Thompson - 2006
    This book presents 50 robot designs for artists to copy, and then embellish with their own creative flourishes. Each design features step-by-step constructional drawings, with instructions for shading and coloring. Among them are-- Basic robots, easy-to-create "starter" models Wizards and alchemists Clockwork robots, constructed from gears, cogs, and mechanical parts Bipedal anti-tank robots engaging in future wars Insect-like robots with computer brains Robotic shock-troop robots for interstellar warfare Readers will also find advice on effective storytelling, avoiding simplistic clich(c)s, seeking out constructive criticism, and maintaining productive work habits. More than 200 instructive color illustrations.

Professional ASP.Net 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management


Stefan Schackow - 2006
    The book offers detailed information on every major area of ASP.NET security you'll encounter when developing Web applications. You'll see how ASP.NET 2.0 version contains many new built-in security functions compared to ASP.NET 1.x such as Membership and Role Manager, and you'll learn how you can extend or modify various features. The book begins with two chapters that walk you through the processing ASP.NET 2.0 performs during a web request and the security processing for each request, followed by a detailed explanation of ASP.NET Trust Levels.With this understanding of security in place, you can then begin working through the following chapters on configuring system security, forms authentication, and integrating ASP.NET security with classic ASP including integrating Membership and Role Manager with classic ASP. The chapter on session state looks at the limitations of cookieless session identifiers, methods for heading off session denial of service attacks, and how session state is affected by trust level. After the chapter explaining the provider model architecture in ASP.NET 2.0 and how it is useful for writing custom security providers you go to the MembershipProvider class and configuring the two default providers in the Membership feature, SqlMembershipProvider and ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider. You'll see how to use RoleManager to make it easy to associate users with roles and perform checks declaratively and in code and wrap up working with three providers for RoleProvider - WindowsTokenRoleProvider, SqlRoleProvider, and AuthorizationStoreRoleProvider (to work with Authorization Manager or AzMan).This book is also available as part of the 5-book ASP.NET 2.0 Wrox Box (ISBN: 0-470-11757-5). This 5-book set includes:Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition (ISBN: 0-470-04178-1) ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution (ISBN: 0764584642 ) Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management (ISBN: 0764596985) Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Server Control and Component Development (ISBN: 0471793507) ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips (ISBN: 0764597663) CD-ROM with more than 1000 pages of bonus chapters from 15 other .NET 2.0 and SQL Server(TM) 2005 Wrox books DVD with 180-day trial version of Microsoft(r) Visual Studio(r) 2005 Professional Edition

Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach


Ferdinand Wagner - 2006
    It provides a critical analysis of using finite state machines as a foundation for executable specifications to reduce software development effort and improve quality. This book discusses the design of a state machine and of a system of state machines. It also presents a detailed analysis of development issues relating to behavior modeling with design examples and design rules for using finite state machines.This volume describes a coherent and well-tested framework for generating reliable software for even the most complex tasks. The authors demonstrate that the established practice of using a specification as a basis for coding is wrong. Divided into three parts, this book opens by delivering the authors' expert opinions on software, covering the evolution of development as well as costs, methods, programmers, and the development cycle. The remaining two parts encourage the use of state machines: promoting the virtual finite state machine (Vfsm) method and the StateWORKS development tools.

A Software Architecture Primer


H.J. Reekie - 2006
    Written by two practitioners with extensive industry and academic experience, it contains a series of chapters that introduce and develop an understanding of software architecture, by means of careful explanation and elaboration of a range of key concepts. Chapters on architectural analysis and design, on fundamental views of complex software systems, and on architectural styles and quality attributes, combine to ensure that the reader or student will master the art of "architectural thinking." This book will be of value to anyone involved in software systems analysis, design, or development. A complete set of course materials is available to support the use of this book as an undergraduate or post-graduate textbook.

PGP & GPG: Email for the Practical Paranoid


Michael W. Lucas - 2006
    It is based on PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) as originally developed by Phil Zimmermann. The OpenPGP protocol defines standard formats for encrypted messages, signatures, and certificates for exchanging public keys.PGP & GPG is an easy-to read, informal tutorial for implementing electronic privacy on the cheap using the standard tools of the email privacy field - commercial PGP and non-commercial GnuPG (GPG). The book shows how to integrate these OpenPGP implementations into the most common email clients and how to use PGP and GPG in daily email correspondence to both send and receive encrypted email.The PGP & GPG book is written for the moderately skilled computer user who is unfamiliar with public key cryptography but who is nevertheless interested in guarding their email privacy. Lucas's trademark informal and relaxed tone makes public key cryptography as simple and clear as possible, so that any reasonably savvy computer user can understand it.