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Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Hacking: The Art of Exploitation Publisher: No Starch Press Authors: Jon Erickson Rating: 5/5  I wonder why it's taken so long for a book like this to be published. Not only does the book clearly cover the most common network hacking programming techniques, he goes through all the major attacks and hacks of interests to today's network security enthusiast/professional. Jon Erickson writes in a clear, concise and organized manner that I wish today's programming books were written in. It's not dumbed-down, but it isn't too obtuse for a complete newbie to understand. Some people in the field say, "we should teach hacking in schools". Well, to all who would--your textbook just arrived.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc. Authors: Fletcher Dunn Rating: 4/5  Well I must say that the book was very well written overall. I'll get to the reasons why I only gave it 4 stars instead of 5 shortly. First, it is my opinion that you need to know the following before you even get started with this book to get the most out of it. You should know at least algebra level math, preferrably at a college level. While the book states you don't need to know trig, I believe it will help you if you do know at least some trig. Finally you should obviously know C++ fairly well, the book heavily leans towards C++, but if you understand the material in the book well enough you shouldn't have too much problems porting it to another language. Some of the major topics covered in the book from beginning to end are the cartesian coordinate system, vectors, matrices, euler angles, quaterions, geometric primitives, geometrics tests (i.e. intersection tests), triangle meshes, lighting equations and visibility determination. Plus an appendix that covers some trigonometry. Ok, the good news. I believe about first 3/4's of the book are top notch. The authors went to extreme lengths to cover the material with very clear and concise explanations of the math topics that are covered and have plenty of pictures to help you understand it. The chapters that cover vectors and matrices made it very clear to me why and how this stuff is used in 3d graphics. The authors also consider the pros and cons of using matrixes, euler angles and quaterions in depth. And at the end most of the chapters are some exercises that help reinforce the material. It's just great stuff! Now the bad news. I feel the last quater of the book had a very rushed feel to it. The topics in those sections just don't meet up to the level of first 3/4's of the book. Topics are skimmed over or just summarily introduced and most of the time you get 'This is beyond the scope of this book, etc..'. Now I understand that most of those topics are beyond the scope of the book but I guess that I got used to the excellent reading of the earlier chapters so I ended up feeling somewhat dissapointed by the remaining ones. But on a positive note they do supply other resources you can look to in the bibliography. One last gripe that I have is they only supply the answers to the exercises up to chapter 7 on their website, they need the answers to the remaining chapters. Those are the reasons why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. Finally, I do highly recommend this book if you interested in learning about 3D programming and it will lay a good foundation for you to move onto other 3D programming books. The positives far outweighs the negatives so it's a great place to start your exploration into the world of 3D graphics!
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 (Programmer to Programmer) Publisher: Wrox Authors: David Buser, John Kauffman, Juan T. Llibre, Brian Francis, Dave Sussman, Chris Ullman, Jon Duckett Rating: 5/5 I kinda got bored of reading, I found computer books too hard to understand, read or to follow, I needed to do an ASP programming project fast, but I didn't know a damn thing about ASP or why people use it...then this book came along... Although the book is aimed at non-programmers or programmers crossing over to another language, it helps if you know Visual Basic as the ASP coding is primarily VBScript in this book. The wording is clear, concise and to the point. I can understand all of what its trying to say, and more importantly why. So okay, it concentrates on Forms on the first few chapters, at least it's explaining them - rather than saying "do it yourself". Some of the code has minor errors in them, but I was able to pick them out. I strongly suggest if you want to start ASP programming (whether its for your own site or for a project) you pick up this book (or Begining ASP Databases) as you should be okay.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Deluxe Learning (Deluxe Learning) Publisher: Microsoft Press Authors: Rating: 4/5 If you have been using VB through the years, VB6.0 is simply a great investment and great way to program. BUT... if you are new to VB you are in for a shock. It is not 'simple' anymore. The focus during the last few years has been on professional developers- not the beginner. New users should be aware that they will spend a lot of time learning the complexities of VB6. Beware, before you go out and buy this language, you need to be prepared to take several days just to get use to the programming environment. That's the beauty of this series. It gives you three volumes that YOU MUST HAVE to successfully enter into the world of VB programming. BUY THIS SERIES IF YOU ARE NEW TO VB PROGRAMMING. Do not buy VB6.0 without the books unless you are an experienced VB programmer. You need the reference materials and if you don't have them, you will almost certainly fail at programming in VB. Good luck and remember: if you work with it and start making small programs, you will be impressed with the results and you will gain confidence in the language.
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