Book Review–Daemon

I’ve got out the blogging habit! Not an intentional thing but something that annoys me when it does.

I finished reading a book this week and enjoyed it so much I thought I’d give it a mention.

I actually picked the book up in March. I was in a book shop and the cover and title grabbed my attention (Look at it! It’s screaming “buy me you geek!”)

I got it home, read a couple of chapters and didn’t go back to it until the weekend just passed.

I wish I hadn’t left it so long! It really drew me in. I was reading it in bed earlier in the week and totally lost track of time and before I knew it I’d been reading for four hours! It did mean I got through most of it though

I’ve mentioned on the blog a couple of times in the past that I’ve got a very specific taste in fiction which makes it really hard to find anything as there isn’t really a genre that fits it. “Techno-Thriller” is what they seem to get labelled under but they rarely have their own section in book stores. Amazon had this one down as “Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Thrillers” and “Fiction > Adventure Stories & Action”

So the plot,

Here is the description from the back of the book

Matthew Sobel is dead, but his final creation survives.
A man is found brutally murdered – and the only possible perpetrator happens to be dead. As more killings follow, it becomes clear that mass carnage is being planned and organised from beyond the grave.
The Daemon is seemingly unstoppable, and murder is the least of its capabilities.
A lethal program designed by a twisted genius, the Daemon inhabits the systems on which an increasingly interconnected society depends. In a world where everyone and everything is online, nothing is out of its reach.
Just don’t turn on that computer…

Without giving away too many spoilers, imagine if a program (or series of programs) were created with criminal intent to make use of the Internet to fulfil it’s goal? This could mean anything from making use of government databases such as automatic number plate recognition services and social security details to simply the ability to scare someone by controlling light switches!

Or to put it another way, if you’ve played any modern computer game you’ve seen how clever and involved the virtual worlds they create are. What if the game engine ran on the Internet and the game world it controlled was actually the physical world?

What is really frightening about the book is that most of the concepts aren’t entirely based in fiction. While some of the technology is what you’d call “bleeding edge” it all feels entirely plausible.

This is in part down to the author “Daniel Suarez” who when not writing books is actually systems consultant so knows his tech!

Another interesting thing about the book is where it came from. Having written the book Daniel struggled to get a publisher to entertain it (as I imagine happens hundreds of times a week across the world!).

Convinced he had a product people would buy he got it in front of bloggers who write about topics that are in the book who wrote posts about the book. He created his own publishing company and used a print-on-demand service to create the books!(full details in an article on Wired)

As I said above it really drew me and the only disappointing thing was when it finished!

This is mainly because the book is a two-parter so the story didn’t get wrapped up (the second book is called Freedom tm). The bonus is I’ll have a whole other book to read

Neither books are particularly expensive so I recommend any self respecting geek has a look!

The book also has a supporting website (TheDaemon.com) which also has links to more reviews as well as some information about the technology behind the book (Hypersonic Sound Systems look very cool, especially with how they are used in the book) and a couple of sample chapters from both books.

Small Business Server 2008 – Installation, Migration and Configuration

A book review!

Small Business Server 2008 – Installation, Migration, and Configuration by David Overton

While there are some great books for anyone working in the SBS space I’m of the opinion there aren’t enough written in the UK so it was with great anticipation I awaited the release of this book once I’d heard UKSBSGuy, David Overton was penning this title

I’m pleased to say the book doesn’t disappoint

The title fully covers exactly what the book is all about

Installation

Getting SBS 2008 up and running as quickly and smoothly as possible on a new system. Even though this is a pretty straight forward situation it fully described and backed up with pictures

Migration

Making the move from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008. The book follows the official Microsoft steps for migration and builds on top of that with lots of pointers and makes you aware of any “gotchas” along the way

Configuration

Once SBS 2008 is installed the book then goes through all the steps you need to go from installed to operating in a production environment. This is where you’ll learn about areas such as installation of a 3rd party SSL certificate, working with Office Live and configuring backups

The book has three other additional areas (it would have been a really long title!)

Managing User and Computers

While it may sound a pretty trivial area a chapter is dedicated to creating users and groups and adding computers and ensuring they are kept up-to-date

Working with SBS Services as a user

This is a great chapter. When a new server goes in to a business more often than not one of the first questions you’ll get it is

“What does it do?”

As a techie it’s then very easy to reel off a long list of things the system can do. This chapter takes that list and steps through it in a simple and easy to understand fashion covering three main areas

E-mail, Calendar and Contacts – this demonstrates Exchange functionality

Managing Files – covering SharePoint/Companyweb use, search and file recovery (via Shadow Copies)

Remote Access – everything you need to know about Remote Web Workplace, OWA, Mobile phones and connecting via VPN

Introduction to SBS 2008 Management

A full introduction into looking after SBS 2008 once it is running as expected

Areas covered include

Using the admin tools, configuring daily reports, security, backups, storage and event logs

The last part of this chapter looks at common problems and how to resolve them (e.g checking DNS forwarders, tweaking spam settings and investigating poor performance)

Conclusion

The book comes in at 380 pages but there are a LOT of screenshots.

Where needed David has added pictures of every step needed to complete a task which can be a massive help when you are doing something you haven’t seen before.

The language used is clear and concise and when a new piece of technical language is used an explanation is provided

The book is pitched in such a way that a tech savvy business owner who wanted to manage their own server will be able to learn from this book but not so simple that people with previous experience wont feel they like being taught old tricks

The book also breaks out to David’s website when something goes beyond the scope of the book and provides background information and other useful resources (there some very good scripts around file share migration)

From the perspective of my day job the book is worth buying just for the migration section alone. It’s in depth and covers every area without straying from the Microsoft official migration strategy. 

Not long after the launch of the book David came to an AMITPRO event where we ran through a live migration. David had never seen either of the servers provided but following the steps in the book a successful migration was completed with a minimum of fuss (Vijay blogged about it at the time here)

Having spoken to David at the event I know he put a lot of work into it and it certainly shows

The book is available in either print or e-book formats directly from the Packt website (though it is available in lots of other places too)

If you work with SBS 2008 this is definitely worth picking up

Susan Bradley says it’s great too so what other recommendation do you need

Disclaimer: A review copy of the book was kindly provided by Packt Publishing – I’ve donated the money I would have spent on the book to Cancer Research UK

Geek Fiction

I like reading.

We learn an awful lot through reading, the invention of RSS was like some sort of geek miracle!"

As well as all the technical material I read I also like to read fiction. The problem I have is finding stuff I’m interested in. Even though it’s not a reference book I still like it to have a geek angle (it’s the way I’m wired unfortunately)

The trouble I have is there is no genre that caters for this.

Science fiction & fantasy is usually space travel or elves and goblins which is not what I’m looking for

But you search for “computer” or “Internet” (or anything tech related) on a book site you get mostly reference material

Here are some books I have found interesting:

Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent (Cyber-Fiction) – very cool book. The story tracks a “cyber terrorist” as he tries to “own the continent”.(Though the ending left me quite confused). There are a couple of others books in this series that I’ve been meaning to pick up

The Cuckoo’s Egg- Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage (Paperback) – Based on a true story of an astronomer turned network admin who discovers his network has been hacked but struggles to get the authorities on his side

The Art of Intrusion- The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers – Not sure if this counts as fiction? Anyway, Kevin Mitnick recounts stories of various computer security “incidents”. I enjoyed this much more than his “art of deception” book which was interesting but got repetitive after a while

Springboard (Tom Clancy’s Net Force) – One of a series of books involving Tom Clancy under the “net force” banner. This was pretty much the sort of thing I was looking for but is a bit too military for me and not quite geek enough. Was enjoyable enough though and I’ll probably read some more net force books. Though I do already have a couple of them which I haven’t started yet

Digital Fortress – Dan Brown is well known for the Da Vinci Code but this was his first book I read. I picked it up while I was away on training course and read the whole thing in one night. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is about the NSA’s “invincible code machine” that comes across a code it can’t break

On a slightly different track I have also read four of the Halo novels (Fall of reach, The Flood, First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx). While looking on Amazon for the links to those turns out there are a couple more I didn’t know were out (or coming out)

Do you have any recommendations?

SMB Consulting Best Practices

I wasn’t going to post about this until i’d finished reading but i’m enjoying it so much i couldn’t wait

SMB Consulting Best Practices Harry Brelsford

Well worth picking up. I placed the order and it actually arrived from the US before a book i’d ordered from Amazon UK on the same day

The start of the book is aimed at would be (or just starting out) SMB Consultants who want to know all about organising and running a successful (thats the important bit!) small business consultancy

It covers areas such actually deciding if your up to it, writing a business plan, marketing, sales, building client relationships, financial management, picking a niche, a nice big section on SBS 2003 and plenty of other resources that will be of use regardless of who long you have been in business

The reason i picked this up was that after we moved offices i decided we could use the opportunity to revamp some of our processes, procedures, strategies, etc as they are not quite as efficient as i’d like. I was looking for some resources that would give me a fresh perspective but couldn’t find anything that grabbed my attention but i’m sure was glad i found this.

I know Vlad is a big fan of The Guide to a Successful Managed Services Practice so i think that is next on my purchase list

 Anyone else got any business books/blogs/websites etc that are worth checking out?

A-Z of Cool Computer Games

I picked up this book from a book shop in Coventry for £2 at the weekend

First couple of chapters show promise and it’s had me wondering down an electronic memory lane!