Best of
Internet

2005

The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web


Dave Shea - 2005
    Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites.

New Black Man


Mark Anthony Neal - 2005
    Politicians, preachers, and pundits routinely cast blame on those already ostracized within African American communities. But the crisis of black masculinity does not rest with "at-risk" youth of the hip-hop generation or men "on the down low" alone. In this provocative new book, acclaimed cultural critic Mark Anthony Neal argues that the "Strong Black Man"-an ideal championed by generations of African American civic leaders-may be at the heart of problems facing black men today.

Arnaud's Restaurant Cookbook: New Orleans Legendary Creole Cuisine


Kit Wohl - 2005
    The menu was and remains extensive; with nine oyster appetizers, fifty-one seafood entrees, and forty vegetables (among them potatoes prepared sixteen ways), it defined French-Creole cuisine for decades. The kitchen is still the largest of any freestanding restaurant in New Orleans. Dining rooms throughout the complex range from the 'lovers' lookout' on the mezzanine to small chambers for intimate, private dining. True to the nineteenth-century design, the restaurant today has a serpentine network of passageways through the various buildings. Throughout this cookbook are fascinating stories and scintillating recipes from the 1918 founding through today, as well as photographs, cartoons, drawings, and other Arnaud's memorabilia.

Regulating Code: Good Governance and Better Regulation in the Information Age


Ian Brown - 2005
    In this groundbreaking collaboration, regulatory lawyer Christopher Marsden and computer scientist Ian Brown analyze the regulatory shaping of "code"--the technological environment of the Internet--to achieve more economically efficient and socially just regulation. They examine five "hard cases" that illustrate the regulatory crisis: privacy and data protection; copyright and creativity incentives; censorship; social networks and user-generated content; and net neutrality.The authors describe the increasing "multistakeholderization" of Internet governance, in which user groups argue for representation in the closed business-government dialogue, seeking to bring in both rights-based and technologically expert perspectives. Brown and Marsden draw out lessons for better future regulation from the regulatory and interoperability failures illustrated by the five cases. They conclude that governments, users, and better functioning markets need a smarter "prosumer law" approach. Prosumer law would be designed to enhance the competitive production of public goods, including innovation, public safety, and fundamental democratic rights.

Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life


Misa Matsuda - 2005
    This timely volume investigates how this once marginalized popular culture has come to play a major role in Japan’s identity at home and abroad. In the American context, the word otaku is best translated as “geek”—an ardent fan with highly specialized knowledge and interests. But it is associated especially with fans of specific Japan-based cultural genres, including anime, manga, and video games. Most important of all, as this collection shows, is the way otaku culture represents a newly participatory fan culture in which fans not only organize around niche interests but produce and distribute their own media content. In this collection of essays, Japanese and American scholars offer richly detailed descriptions of how this once stigmatized Japanese youth culture created its own alternative markets and cultural products such as fan fiction, comics, costumes, and remixes, becoming a major international force that can challenge the dominance of commercial media. By exploring the rich variety of otaku culture from multiple perspectives, this groundbreaking collection provides fascinating insights into the present and future of cultural production and distribution in the digital age.

Children and the Internet: Great Expectations, Challenging Realities


Sonia M. Livingstone - 2005
    It deliberately avoids a techno-celebratory approach and, instead, interprets children's everyday practices of internet use in relation to the complex and changing historical and cultural conditions of childhood in late modernity. Uniquely, "Children and the Internet" reveals the complex dynamic between online opportunities and online risks, exploring this in relation to much debated issues such as: - Digital in/exclusion- Learning and literacy- Peer networking and privacy- Civic participation- Risk and harmDrawing on current theories of identity, development, education and participation, this book includes a refreshingly critical account of the challenging realities undermining the great expectations held out for the internet - from governments, teachers, parents and children themselves. It concludes with a forward-looking framework for policy and regulation designed to advance children's rights to expression, connection and play online as well as offline.

The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media and Technology Success of Our Time


David A. Vise - 2005
    The Google Story takes you deep inside the company's wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that rakes in billions in profits, making Brin and Page the wealthiest young men in America. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, this fast-moving narrative reveals how an unorthodox management style and culture of innovation enabled a search engine to shake up Madison Avenue and Wall Street, scoop up YouTube, and battle Microsoft at every turn. Not afraid of controversy, Google is expanding in Communist China and quietly working on a searchable genetic database, initiatives that test the founders' guiding mantra: DON'T BE EVIL.

Law and Internet Cultures


Kathy Bowrey - 2005
    It considers the ways decisions about Internet technologies are made; ideas behind global trade and innovation; power of engineers and programmers; influence of multinationals; and questions about global marketing and consumer choice. Although the volume draws upon current debates from globalization, communications and socio-legal theory, it will be comprehensible to a general audience interested in issues associated with technology and innovation.

Manuel Castells


Felix Stalder - 2005
    First in-depth study of Manuell Castells pioneering workTraces Castells thought from his work on urban change in the 1970s to his recent theories of global social transformationsDistills the central ideas in Castells work into an accessible and concise introduction for undergraduate studentsExplores Castells writings on the network society, informational capitalism and democracy in crisisProvides a critical analysis of Castells thought in relation to ongoing debates about globalization

Rss and Atom: Understanding and Implementing Content Feeds and Syndication


Heinz Wittenbrink - 2005
    The feed formats and vocabularies are covered in depth, and the book does require some familiarity with XML, but no scripting or development expertise is necessary. The book starts by analyzing the need to distribute content that RSS emerged to meet. It outlines in development of the various formats as way of understanding how the technology map of today came about. The current status of the leading formats is summarized succinctly. Then RSS is examined in detail. The XML vocabulary and document structure is examined and explained clearly. Each element is illustrated with carefully chosen examples. The changes through RSS 0.9x to 2.0 are covered in depth as are extensions and modules such as BitTorrent, EasyNews and others. The book then goes on to examine the richness and complexity of RSS 1.0 and 1.1, again covering both how design decisions were made, then covering the XML structure in depth. The same in depth treatment is then given to Atom, comparing and contrasting the formats where appropriate.