The Internet's Best Computer Review Site http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo Tue, 13 May 2008 16:39:28 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/395 Originally this article was supposed to be a book review of the upcoming O'Reilly title Subject to Change, but I was so appalled by its content that I felt compelled to shift focus to the more important issue of ethics in publishing. This book reflects a sinister trend in the tech book publishing industry that favors vapid, tedious material that serves to advise readers without revealing the big secrets. The purpose is for the authors (usually a group of writers, and most of them high-level managers) to promote their company and its services by giving readers just enough information. If they want the advanced material, they need to buy the rest at a premium price by going straight to the company for its professional services. Meanwhile, the publisher bathes in a sea of money while the authors relentlessly promote the book on their blogs and in their conference keynotes and panel discussions. Tech books have increasingly become corporate marketing vehicles, sacrificing the exciting A-list technical material that regular tech book buyers and enthusiasts have come to expect from companies like O'Reilly Media and Pearson Education. This isn't the first book I've seen that gives readers a 20,000-word marketing pitch -- that honor belongs to Enterprise Ajax (and it's about three times longer). I'm bothered -- sickened -- to see that not only is this trend continuing unabated, but it's actually become a habit. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/394 Since we were successful in selling Software in Review, the time has come to list Hardware in Review as well. It's on a 7-day eBay auction (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170213726493). If you're a computer hardware enthusiast, buying a site like this for the price listed is a dream come true. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/393 Web navigation is, ideally, something you never have to think about as a Web site visitor or user. As a Web designer, however, it is among your primary concerns. If you need a good education on this particular subject, you'll find a great resource in O'Reilly's Designing Web Navigation. It's an outstanding guide to building effective, professional navigation for sites of all kinds. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/392 Software in Review, the site that has hosted all of our software reviews over the past two and a half years, was sold to a private individual this past weekend. We hope the new owner continues the tradition of excellence in technology journalism that our company established on Software in Review, and wish him luck in expanding its readership. We've received some inquiries regarding other JEM Electronic Media sites since Software in Review went up for sale. Indeed, all of our sites are for sale; we're both committed to private sector contracts and other work and are unable to give enough attention to our media sites to increase their traffic level appropriately. Contact us at staff at jemelectronicmedia.com with offers or inquiries. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/391 My partner in JEM Electronic Media has moved on to a different career, and I am in the same transitional process as well. Most of my time is now consumed with book writing, editing, and evaluation, not with technology journalism. I've been struggling to keep the sites current in recent months. So it is time to pass at least some of them on to someone else. The first one up for sale is Software in Review, our most successful site. It is on a 10 day auction on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170202922570) with no reserve. So if you really like the tradition of excellence we brought to the software review world through softwareinreview.com and want to pick up the torch, now's your chance. If you've always wanted your own software review site with a decent amount of traffic and the opportunity to make money from Web publishing, this is a dream come true. And if you want to buy it out because you hate the reviews you don't agree with, this is a chance to unpublish them forever. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/390 There aren't many FreeBSD books on the market -- compared to the number of Linux books, anyway -- so it's important that the few extant titles be superbly written and technically accurate. I was really looking forward to reading Absolute FreeBSD 2nd Edition because I'd heard such great things about the aged first edition. Unfortunately, I found this book to be a spectacular disappointment. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/389 In switching over our software (http://www.softwareinreview.com) and hardware (http://www.hardwareinreview.com) review sites to a new publishing application, site design is something we put a lot of consideration into. I wish I'd had The Principles of Beautiful Web Design to read as I was going through that process. Content-wise, it is indeed that good -- it's indispensable for Web designers, professional and amateur. It's afflicted by substandard editing, but the high-color, graphic-rich, information-heavy content is superb. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/388 Ah, yet another book about Ubuntu Linux. Is there no reprieve from the bombardment of Ubuntu and beginner Linux books (and Ubuntu for beginners books)? For Introducing Ubuntu: Desktop Linux to impress me, it had to offer something new and unique, and it had to successfully address the reality of introducing a new operating system to a computer user. I'm impressed with the scope of the book's coverage on frequently encountered Linux problems, but I don't think this book was as good as it could have been. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/387 Innovation is word roughly as over-used in the information technology industry as change is in politics. Everyone talks about it, but few people actually implement it beyond a superficial level. It's a buzzword; it was the first term in the marketingspeak canon; it's what CEOs talk about when they don't have a crisis to manage. When I first got The Myths of Innovation in for review, I was intrigued by the first parts of it I read, so I interviewed the author, Scott Berkun (http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/348/) and asked him some questions about innovation as it relates to open source software. It turns out that innovation can move beyond marketingspeak and ridiculous Steve Ballmer speeches and actually represent invention and improvement. The Myths of Innovation showcases a wide variety of useful ideas, processes, and methods that smart people can use to succeed as inventors, engineers, and managers. As the title implies, there is also a lot of talk about what not to do when trying to think of new ways to succeed. This is a truly inspiring book. http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/386 The Project Management Professional certification exam is an important asset to software developers who want to move up to management, and for many projects, it's a requirement. Given the depth of knowledge required to pass the exam, studying for it is a niche book market unto itself. O'Reilly's Head First PMP is a typical member of the unique and whimsical Head First book series -- full of interesting ways to learn a majority of the important material, but lacking the last 20% of the effort necessary to fully prepare a reader for the exam.