Best of
Internet

2010

The Internet is a Playground


David Thorne - 2010
    The complete collection of articles and emails from 27bslash6 such as Overdue Account, Party in Apartment 3 and Strata Agreement plus articles too litigious to be on the website.

Advanced Google AdWords


Brad Geddes - 2010
    Discover the best tools for keyword research, tips on crafting winning ad copy, advanced PPC optimization tricks, winning bidding strategies, and much more. If you manage AdWords PPC accounts, you won't want to miss this expert, detailed instruction.Covers the essential and advanced capabilities of Google AdWords Explores keyword research, PPC optimization strategies, the intricacies of Content Nation, how to interpret results and reports, and much more Provides busy marketers, consultants, PR professionals, Web developers, and others with an invaluable, step-by-step guide of advanced concepts Goes well beyond the basics and offers tips and tactics that you can immediately apply to your own campaigns Reinforces concepts through fascinating, real-world case studies Includes a $25 Google Adwords Gift Card for new customers If you've been seeking a practical, expert book on Google AdWords, one that goes well beyond the basics, Advanced Google AdWords is it!

Web Operations: Keeping the Data on Time


John Allspaw - 2010
    It's the expertise you need when your start-up gets an unexpected spike in web traffic, or when a new feature causes your mature application to fail. In this collection of essays and interviews, web veterans such as Theo Schlossnagle, Baron Schwartz, and Alistair Croll offer insights into this evolving field. You'll learn stories from the trenches--from builders of some of the biggest sites on the Web--on what's necessary to help a site thrive.Learn the skills needed in web operations, and why they're gained through experience rather than schoolingUnderstand why it's important to gather metrics from both your application and infrastructureConsider common approaches to database architectures and the pitfalls that come with increasing scaleLearn how to handle the human side of outages and degradationsFind out how one company avoided disaster after a huge traffic delugeDiscover what went wrong after a problem occurs, and how to prevent it from happening againContributors include:John AllspawHeather ChampMichael ChristianRichard CookAlistair CrollPatrick DeboisEric FlorenzanoPaul HammondJustin HuffAdam JacobJacob LoomisMatt MassieBrian MoonAnoop NagwaniSean PowerEric RiesTheo SchlossnagleBaron SchwartzAndrew Shafer

Wireshark Network Analysis: The Official Wireshark Certified Network Analyst Study Guide


Gerald Combs - 2010
    Wireshark is the world's most popular network analyzer tool. This book is the ultimate resource on Wireshark which is a MUST HAVE tool used by network IT professionals to troubleshoot, secure and optimize networks. Readers learn to capture wired and wireless traffic, focus on the cause of slow web browsing, identify why applications don't run properly across the network, locate the cause of poor VoIP call quality, determine why WLANs are plagued with problems and more. The author, Laura Chappell is the founder of Wireshark University and Chappell University and has been analyzing networks for over 20 years - the book is written in a clear manner with hundreds of screenshots for the visual learner. The foreword was written by Gerald Combs, creator of Wireshark. Wireshark Network Analysis covers the test objectives for the Wireshark Certified Network Analyst Exam and includes test questions and answers for all topics covered. Filled with 45 real-life case studies, Wireshark Network Analysis takes you inside small, medium and large corporations to see how they solved network problems in a more efficient, accurate way using Wireshark. Book supplements are available online at www.wiresharkbook.com.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains


Nicholas Carr - 2010
    He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways.Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection.Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.

Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy Is Your Business Strategy


Vanessa Fox - 2010
    Search has become woven into our everyday lives, and permeates offline as well as online activities. Every business should have a search strategy. How a business appears online can impact consumer influence as much as if not more than offline advertising like TV commercials. A business's search strategy can have a dramatic impact on how consumers interact with that business.But even more importantly, search engine activity provides amazingly useful data about customer behavior, needs, and motivations. Accessing search data is like conducting focus groups with millions of people for free. Search isn't just for marketers and techies. It can provide valuable insight on business strategy and product strategy.Companies of all sizes - from startups to global enterprise level corporations, and even businesses without web sites - can benefit from understanding how consumers are searching for them and talking about them online, both as a powerful acquisition channel and a vast repository of market research.In this non-technical book forexecutives, business owners, marketers, and product managers, search engine strategy guru Vanessa Fox-who created Google's portal for site owners, Googgle Webmaster Central -explains what every marketer or business owner needs to understand about how search rankings work, how to use search to better understand your customers and attract new ones, how to develop a comprehensive search strategy for your business, and how to build execution of this strategy into the businesses processes. This isn't another book about paid search for advertisers. This book focuses on organic listings - the unpaid results that receive 86% of searcher clicks.Written by search engine guru Vanessa Fox, formerly Google's search engine strategy spokesperson and creator of Google Webmaster Central Explains from a businessperson's perspective how to develop a successful search engine strategy Shows how to use the easily accessible data from search engines to increase qualified traffic, better understand customers, and strengthen customer relationships Reveals how smaller companies can leverage search engine marketing to achieve parity with larger brands With this book in hand, every businessperson will have the knowledge and the tools to maximize the potential of search engine marketing to build a brand, draw new prospects, and generate sales.

Sleep Paralysis: A Guide to Hypnagogic Visions and Visitors of the Night


Ryan Hurd - 2010
    In Sleep Paralysis: A Guide to Hypnagogic Visions and Visitors of the Night, these night visitations of ghosts, vampires-and even aliens-are honored afresh from the perspective of contemporary dream science. Although they can be terrifying, these visions can also be a reliable portal to other extraordinary states, including lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, and guided journeys to realms beyond our imagination. Sleep paralysis is the only print book that discusses sleep paralysis and its related dream visions from a how-to perspective -- a book for those who want to manage their SP or engage more confidently with this ancient lucid dreaming technique.

Lean IT: Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation


Steven C. Bell - 2010
    Yet when an enterprise begins a Lean transformation, too often the IT department is either left out or viewed as an obstacle. What is to be done? Winner of a 2011 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize, this book shares practical tips, examples, and case studies to help you establish a culture of continuous improvement to deliver IT operational excellence and business value to your organization.Praise for:...will have a permanent place in my bookshelf. Gene Kim, Chief Technology Officer, Tripwire, Inc. ... provides an unprecedented look at the role that Lean IT will play in making this revolutionary shift and the critical steps for sustained success. Steve Castellanos, Lean Enterprise Director, Nike, Inc.Twenty years from now the firms which dominate their industries will have fully embraced Lean strategies throughout their IT organizations. Scott W. Ambler, Chief Methodologist for Agile and Lean, IBM Rationala great survival manual for those needing nimble and adaptive systems. Dr. David Labby, MD, PhD, Medical Director and Director of Clinical Support and Innovation, CareOregonmakes a major contribution in an often-ignored but much-needed area. John Bicheno, Program Director MS in Lean Operations, Cardiff Universitya comprehensive view into the world of Lean IT, a must read! Dave Wilson, Quality Management, Oregon Health & Science University

Building Web Reputation Systems


F. Randall Farmer - 2010
    This book shows you how to design and develop reputation systems for your own sites or web applications, written by experts who have designed web communities for Yahoo! and other prominent sites.Building Web Reputation Systems helps you ask the hard questions about these underlying mechanisms, and why they're critical for any organization that draws from or depends on user-generated content. It's a must-have for system architects, product managers, community support staff, and UI designers.Scale your reputation system to handle an overwhelming inflow of user contributionsDetermine the quality of contributions, and learn why some are more useful than othersBecome familiar with different models that encourage first-class contributionsDiscover tricks of moderation and how to stamp out the worst contributions quickly and efficientlyEngage contributors and reward them in a way that gets them to returnExamine a case study based on actual reputation deployments at industry-leading social sites, including Yahoo!, Flickr, and eBay

Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century


William J. Mitchell - 2010
    The cars we drive today follow the same underlying design principles as the Model Ts of a hundred years ago and the tail-finned sedans of fifty years ago. In the twenty-first century, cars are still made for twentieth-century purposes. They are inefficient for providing personal mobility within cities -- where most of the world's people now live. In this pathbreaking book, William Mitchell and two industry experts reimagine the automobile, describing vehicles of the near future that are green, smart, connected, and fun to drive. They roll out four big ideas that will make this both feasible and timely.The fundamental reinvention of the automobile won't be easy, but it is an urgent necessity -- to make urban mobility more convenient and sustainable, to make cities more livable, and to help bring the automobile industry out of crisis.

The Big Book of Social Media: Case Studies, Stories, Perspectives


Robert Fine - 2010
    Not Marketing. This is an IDEA book. "Social media is not really about technology. It's about a cultural shift that is enabled by the evolution of technology." - Wayne Moses Burke, Founder of Open Forum Foundation, "GoLuv" Chapter Contributor "I wasn't annoying. And I firmly believe that is the key to my social networking success." - Colleen Crinklaw, Alaska's Only Stand-Up Comedienne, "Don't Dream It, Be It" Chapter Contributor "As international media was being shutout of Tehran, Breaking Tweets was able to continue its coverage as I built a trusted network of sources in Iran via Twitter." - Craig Kanalley, "Breaking Tweets" Chapter Contributor Learn how social media is affecting change around the world. Get immersed with the real-life drama of Mad Men characters on Twitter. See how nonprofit organizations are spreading their message and growing their organizational base. Gain Practical advice from leaders behind brand names like Olympus, CBC Radio, Network Solutions, Center for American Progress, and The Heritage Foundation.

A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age


Zizi Papacharissi - 2010
    The Internet is a political medium, borne of democracy, but is it democratizing? Late modern democracies are characterized by civic apathy, public skepticism, disillusionment with politics, and general disinterest in conventional political process. And yet, public interest in blogging, online news, net-based activism, collaborative news filtering, and online networking reveal an electorate that is not disinterested, but rather, fatigued with political conventions of the mainstream.This book examines how online digital media shape and are shaped by contemporary democracies, by addressing the following issues:How do online technologies remake how we function as citizens in contemporary democracies? What happens to our understanding of public and private as digitalized democracies converge technologies, spaces and practices? How do citizens of today understand and practice their civic responsibilities, and how do they compare to citizens of the past? How do discourses of globalization, commercialization and convergence inform audience/producer, citizen/consumer, personal/political, public/private roles individuals must take on? Are resulting political behaviors atomized or collective? Is there a public sphere anymore, and if not, what model of civic engagement expresses current tendencies and tensions best? Students and scholars of media studies, political science, and critical theory will find this to be a fresh engagement with some of the most important questions facing democracies today.

How to Stop E-mail Spam, Spyware, Malware, Computer Viruses, and Hackers from Ruining Your Computer or Network: The Complete Guide for Your Home and Work


Bruce Brown - 2010
    In businesses alone, according to Nucleus Research Inc., spam costs more than $712 per employee in productivity and computing resources each year. Spyware slows computers, ruins files, and can result in stolen information. According to the same Nucleus Research report, businesses lose more than $70 billion annually because of computer viruses -- and the cost continues to rise as every major company moves to a fully digital workplace.Every time you download a computer virus or click on a spam e-mail by accident, you are wasting money, endangering your computer, and risking the loss of personal and business information. This complete, revolutionary book has compiled all of the vital information you need to make sure that you are able to combat the billion dollar risk of incursive software infecting your home and work computers.With How to Stop E-mail Spam, Spyware, and Computer Viruses from Ruining Your Computer, you will learn why there is so much spam in your inbox, how the spammer thinks, and what the goals of spyware and viruses actually are. Then, you will learn how you can start spam-proofing your inbox by never giving away personal information and using secure e-mail clients. You will learn how companies get spyware onto your hard drive and what you can do to block it from appearing. Learn which viruses have caused the most damage and how they can infect your computer. Then, discover which software is most effective at blocking the download and infestation of viruses onto your hard drives.You will learn the value of a good firewall, what it does to stop the ill will of spammers and hackers, and what actions you can take to block the breach of your firewall and your computer's defenses. Learn how to remove spyware from your computer and make sure you are not giving away personal or valuable work information. This guide will also teach you how to lock down your inbox and desktop to keep that software from returning. Find out what to do when you do get a virus and how to return your computer to the state of security it was in beforehand.Most importantly, with the valued input gathered from interviews with computer security and safety experts, you will learn how you became a target for all that spam. Discover what you are doing that makes it so easy for spammers to fill your inbox and how to safeguard your e-mail. Once you have tackled the source of the problems, as outlined in this book, you will have all the tools you need to combat the incursive and destructive effects of spam, spyware, and computer viruses.Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company president's garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.

Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance


Milton L. Mueller - 2010
    In Networks and States, Milton Mueller counters this, showing how Internet governance poses novel and fascinating governance issues that give rise to a global politics and new transnational institutions. Drawing on theories of networked governance, Mueller provides a broad overview of Internet governance from the formation of ICANN to the clash at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the formation of the Internet Governance Forum, the global assault on peer-to-peer file sharing, and the rise of national-level Internet control and security concerns.Internet governance has become a source of conflict in international relations. Networks and States explores the important role that emerging transnational institutions could play in fostering global governance of communication-information policy.

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires


Tim Wu - 2010
    With all our media now traveling a single network, an unprecedented potential is building for centralized control over what Americans see and hear. Could history repeat itself with the next industrial consolidation? Could the Internet—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by one corporate leviathan in possession of “the master switch”? That is the big question of Tim Wu’s pathbreaking book.As Wu’s sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century—radio, telephone, television, and film—was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood . . . NBC’s founder, David Sarnoff, who, to save his broadcast empire from disruptive visionaries, bullied one inventor (of electronic television) into alcoholic despair and another (this one of FM radio, and his boyhood friend) into suicide . . . And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter.Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empire—a progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alike—Wu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of today’s great information powers: Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T. A battle royal looms for the Internet’s future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.Part industrial exposé, part meditation on what freedom requires in the information age, The Master Switch is a stirring illumination of a drama that has played out over decades in the shadows of our national life and now culminates with terrifying implications for our future.

The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World


Chris Barr - 2010
    

The Tuning of Place: Sociable Spaces and Pervasive Digital Media


Richard Coyne - 2010
    Pervasive media help us formulate a sense of place, writes Coyne, through their capacity to introduce small changes, in the same way that tuning a musical instrument invokes the subtle process of recalibration. Places are inhabited spaces, populated by people, their concerns, memories, stories, conversations, encounters, and artifacts. The tuning of place--whereby people use their devices in their interactions with one another--is also a tuning of social relations.The range of ubiquity is vast--from the familiar phones and hand-held devices through RFID tags, smart badges, dynamic signage, microprocessors in cars and kitchen appliances, wearable computing, and prosthetics, to devices still in development. Rather than catalog achievements and predictions, Coyne offers a theoretical framework for discussing pervasive media that can inform developers, designers, and users as they contemplate interventions into the environment. Processes of tuning can lead to consideration of themes highly relevant to pervasive computing: intervention, calibration, wedges, habits, rhythm, tags, taps, tactics, thresholds, aggregation, noise, and interference.