Book Reviews

Although this book is subtitled "Tips and Tricks", it actually does serve as a decent introduction to the Reason software. I picked this up after having only used Reason for a week or so and found it immensely helpful in terms of understanding the various components you can use in your sequencer setup. The 17 chapters in this book cover the basics such as familiarizing yourself with the sequencer and mixer, but also cover more interesting components such as the ReDrum Drum Machine, and the Thor Polysonic Synthesizer. Throughout the book they give you the basics on how to use the device along with tips and tricks to improve your usage of the device. This makes the content accessible and useful at multiple levels. I think the only thing this could be improved by would be more depth in some areas. That being said, since this is a tips and tricks book in name, that content might be better suited for a different volume.

This book is definitely a good resource for someone who is just beginning to develop their own creative style in photography. The book covers a wide range of topics, with focus on lighting, color, black and white, developing a style, a good field checklist, etc. I found the most valuable aspect of the book to be the focus on examples of creative style in other work, and technical tips for how to achieve new aspects of creativity in your work. Overall, I think the book is full of good content, but I have not had a chance to really put it to practice as much as I need to yet, so I can't speak 100% to its ability to stick in your mind.

I would recommend this to people who have already figured out how the various settings on their cameras work and are looking to improve the artistic aspects of their photography.

Algorithms of the Intelligent Web attempts to provide a summary of current techniques for providing intelligence for web applications. In this way it competes with books like Programming Collective Intelligence, however rather than using Python, AotIW uses Java to demonstrate algorithms. Since the examples in both of these books can be somewhat in-depth, I chose to read AotIW because I was more familiar with Java. The book's strength comes from its liberal use of code examples to demonstrate the theoretical concepts introduced into the book. These code examples serve to ground what could be a very academic discussion in the real world. Particularly helpful are the real world application examples that are used to combine a chapter's concepts together into one cohesive unit. Not only do these serve as a good summary for a chapter, but also as a good reference point when developing my own intelligent applications. The only real issue I have with this book is its shyness to tackle more advanced AI concepts. The book often refers you to more academic papers will explain these ideas, however I feel that the book would have benefited from a larger theoretical base, and a more in-depth discussion of these advanced topics.

The camel book is a book that needs no introduction. The Perl community considers it the ultimate Perl book, and rightfully so, as it is written by Larry Wall himself (also Christiansen and Jon Orwant)!

The camel book is an in-depth look at the Perl programming language. The book does a fantastic job explaining how to use the language, the more powerful aspects of the language, as well as some of the implementation details of the compiler. As you progress through the book, it constantly builds upon itself. Different quirks/features of the language which are first introduced as black magic are explained in exhaustive detail later on. For example, you first learn about what the autoload pragma is, followed by advanced usage of goto, and then they tie that together by detailing how autoload is implemented with gotos. As a side note, I know this sounds gross, but gotos aren't what you think they are in Perl... at least not always.

The writing is, for the most part, very clear and understandable, and contains a heavy dose of humor. The humor is definitely welcome, as the text would be horribly dry without it. The humor also tends to be representative of the Perl community at large, which is fabulous for the new Perl programmer. The only problem I had with the writing style was the chapter on regular expressions. In this chapter, the wording is murky at times, and more examples would be a welcome addition. Like I said though, this is only one chapter.

The biggest problem with this book is that it's old. The latest edition (3rd at the time of this writing) only covers up to Perl 5.6. We're at Perl 5.12 now, with 5.14 on the horizon, and a significant amount has changed. However, that doesn't make this book irrelevant. I think it makes a wonderful companion to Modern Perl by chromatic. Once someone has a handle on how to write modern Perl (>=5.10), this book is definitely a great look at the rest of Perl as well as an interesting peek into the internals of the language. Regardless of recent developments in the language, this book still has a significant amount of relevant content.

If you want to truly become a Perl master, you need a copy of this book, but keep in mind you'll also probably want a book that covers more modern Perl.

Digital Photography from the Ground Up is a very comprehensive reference for the budding photographer who wants to take their hobby to the next level. Juergen Gulbins has covered a wide range of topics, from how cameras work and what to look for when buying a camera all the way to how to edit your digital photos and get them printed at home or professionally. The text throughout the book is very clear and easy to understand. It is also organized very well for someone who is brand new to the field of photography to pick up and start learning right away.

My favorite section in Gulbins' book is his focus on various styles of photography. He covers styles such as landscape, portraiture, sports, nighttime, macro, and a number of others. These chapters focus on the technical dos and don'ts of photography and on ways where breaking the rules can be effective. There is also a brief section on privacy and publicity rights, which is useful for someone who wants to sell their work or is planning to do street photography where you'll be in an environment where you are taking pictures of many other people. I would have liked perhaps a little more focus on the commercial aspects of photography and effective ways to market and sell your work, but since it doesn't strictly fit the flow of the book I can understand why that is lacking.

All in all, this is definitely a great book for someone new to the hobby to use and I plan on referencing it further as I continue to expand my own skills.