Reading List 2011

I thought it’d be worth explaining the slew of book reviews that have been on the blog recently.

I like to read.

I read a LOT.

Whether its a book, a blog, a magazine I’ve always got something on the go.

My reading habits when it comes to books is a little weird though. Sometimes I’ll read three or four books in a short space of time and then stop for a couple of months then do the same thing again.

I’m always adding to my book collection and I’ve got lots of books I’ve never read so I wanted to get out of the up/down cycle and be a bit more consistent.

It’s been mostly fiction so far purely because those are the books I’ve got at the moment but I imagine there will be some non-fiction along the way.

I’d also like to know how many books I do actually read because I really don’t know.

I also wanted to help keep me in the blogging habit by writing a book review for each one.

Last year my blogging pattern was even worse than my book reading pattern and it’s something I intend to change this year and it’s worked so far to a degree. While I’m not posting on a daily basis just the act of writing a post is helping keep me engaged with the blog.

I’ve added a page with a list of everything I’ve read this year via a GoodReads widget though it’s a little temperamental and doesn’t seem to show everything until I give it a bit of a kick so I’ll need to keep an eye on that I think.

I have some very specific tastes in fiction but if anyone has any suggestions of what to read next they are more than welcome.

Book Review: Assassins Creed Renaissance

Is there such a thing as reading too many books?

I’m really into Assassins Creed at the moment. Having ignored the first game I got the second one as gift for my birthday and I was engrossed with it so when I saw this book I grabbed a copy.

The story follows the events of Assassins Creed 2 so I waited until I’d worked through the game before reading it.

A big part of the game is that there are lots of side missions and other things to do as well as following the main plotline so it was good to revisit the story and it’s easy to loose track a bit while playing.

What was a little interesting is that I’ve progressed onto the next game, Assassins Creed Brotherhood and there are some sections in the book that are actually flashbacks in the next game. In a strange bit of coincidence I started the flashback sequences in the game at the same time as I was reading that part in the book so I knew what I was supposed to be doing in the mission straightaway!

While I enjoyed reading the book it’s no literary masterpiece so probably only worth reading if you’re a fan of the game.

There is a book to go with the Brotherhood game too so as with this I’ll wait till I’ve worked through the game. The Brotherhood game is vast and I’m struggling to keep track of the story a little so it’ll be useful to go back to the book afterwards.

You can pick up this book on Amazon.

Book Review: Network Your Computers & Devices Step by Step

I need to stop reading so fast otherwise I’ll need to rename this to Andy’s Reading Blog!

The Microsoft Press Facebook page were looking for people to review this new book so I put my hand up and I was lucky enough to get a copy of the ebook to take a peek at.

I’m a big fan of the “Step-by-step” series but I was interested in this book as it’s not actually targeted at me.What I mean by this is the book isn’t intended for IT Pros. It’s generally meant for the home user who wants to do a little bit more with the multiple computers they may have dotted around the house.

Since it’s not uncommon for a household to have two or more computers it’s understandable that you’d want to share files and printers and work with other devices that may be dotted around the house such as mobile phones.

As with the other books in the “step by step” series everything is clearly shown as set of instructions to follow and there are lots of screenshots to help along the way.

Chapters are also task focussed so you don’t need to read the whole thing cover to cover if you have specific goal in mind.

Each chapter also finishes with a “Key Points” section which summaries what has just been covered.

The book is heavily Windows 7 focussed which is understandable as it’s the current operating system but it also recognises that not every computer in a household would be running Windows 7 so it also looks at working with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X 10 as well Ubuntu Linux which I think is sensible step.

A quick summary of the chapters,

The first chapter looks at actually setting up a router and getting on the Internet and helpfully runs through how to configure two different routers (a Belkin and a DLink) beforeing explaining what device stage is and how it can be useful when working with external devices.

Chapter two covers user accounts. Why you need them, what types of account you can use (standard vs administrator) and to how to setup passwords.

Chapter three looks at libraries. What the are and how to step them up. It’s a useful Windows 7 feature I think sometimes gets overlooked.

Chapter four is all about setting up the network itself on the PCs. This means setting up network adapters, connecting to a wireless network and setting the homegroup.

Chapter five is a short chapter all about customising some of the network sharing settings such as network discovery and encryption.

Chapter six covers homegroups. This new Windows 7 feature is designed to make sharing between PCs easier to setup and this chapters looks at how these configured.

Chapter seven talks about sharing files and setting access permissions. What I liked about this chapter is looks at the basics but it also looks at some of the advanced settings if you want to take it a little further.

Chapter eight is about devices. Sharing printers and removable drives as well as connecting to a mobile phone via bluetooth and moving data between the PC and the phone.

Chapter nine covers sharing media. One of the best chapters in the book I think as it’s something that is really useful but lots of people don’t even know they can do it!

Chapters ten, eleven and twelve are all about interoperability and sharing files and printers with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X 10 and Ubuntu Linux. It’s great to see this as many househoulds have a mix of computers and there are plenty of screenshots to get you through it. This is a chapter I’d find invaluable as I’m not as familiar with Mac OS and Ubuntu.

Chapter thirteen is entitled “Keeping the network secure” and covers UAC, managing Windows Updates, working with Windows Defender and Windows Firewall as well as mentioning what options are available when choosing anti-virus software. It intentionally didn’t mention a specific anti-virus product to use. I can understand why it did this and while it’s not massively helpful if you’re a home user it at least gave resources to help make that decision.

Chapter fourteen looks at parental controls. A very important chapter in my opinion as there are lots of stories about children doing things with computers they shouldn’t be yet many parents don’t realise the ability to setup restrictions and monitor usage is built into the operating system. I wrote a detailed post about Parental Controls when Windows Vista was released which generally applies to Windows 7 too.

Chapter fifteen is the final chapter and looks at troubleshooting common problems. Many books like this are great when everything is working as it should so it’s good to see some useful pointers when it doesn’t. There are some really good troubleshooting flowcharts to help work through any problems.

So in closing, it’s good book. As I said at the beginning it’s not really for IT Pros but I’d have no problem recommending it for friends and family.

I may even test it out on my Dad

You can find it on Amazon here

Book Review–Halo Evolutions (Volume 1 and 2)

One of the things I really enjoy about the Halo series of games is the back story and for Halo fans there has been plenty of fiction thrown up which I’ve been more than happy to read!

So when I saw Halo Evolutions and Halo Evolutions Volume 2 on Amazon I ordered them straight away.

In a nutshell the books are a series of short stories based around the Halo Universe and explore multiple areas from various different characters such as Admiral Cole’s backstory, what happened to Cortana while she was waiting to be rescued from the Gravemind or even following an Elite as he revisits a planet he’d previously helped destroy. There’s a summary of each story on the Halo Wiki

I’ve not been able to put the first book down and as soon as I’d finished the first I was onto the second, which is where the disappointment set in as what I was reading seemed awfully familiar!

The pages on Amazon don’t explain this at all but there are actually THREE books.

Halo Evolutions

Halo Evolutions: Volume 1

Halo Evolutions: Volume 2

Turns out they took one big book and split it into two smaller books so the Volume 2 I paid for contains all the stories I’ve already read, save for one extra story meaning I’ve effectively paid for an extra 16 pages.

I’m trying not to let this get in the way of the fact I really enjoyed what I did read though, I’m just a little miffed the differences weren’t clear.

Book Review–Gridiron

I’ve just finished the second book from the gifts I received at Christmas (though I somehow missed this off the original post!). I’d completely forgotten I’d added it to my Amazon wish list so it was a great surprise, especially when I discovered it’s out of print so I appreciated the effort taken to track it down.

The title of the book comes from a high tech building nicknamed “The Gridiron”. The book was originally published in 1995 and a lot of the technology described within would be still considered high tech now (testing employee urinals to check on their health!) and it’s the technology aspect which originally drew me to the book. 

The premise of the book is that after a couple of mysterious deaths it becomes apparent that the building computer system could have something to do with it.

This bothered me for a while. Most thrillers of this type try to keep a bit of mystery about what’s going on so you can be surprised when it all falls into place but this book points to the building and it’s systems as the culprit pretty much straight away.

Fortunately my fears were unfounded and there was a nice twist two thirds of the way in and it left itself open for a sequel, though I don’t think there is one. 

It was a pretty ordinary thriller all things said but the technology side of things made it interesting.

The computer that ran the building management software could basically control everything inside from the temperature, control the elevators and door locks to how much light the glass lets in to the smell of a particular room as well as using cameras, microphones and various other sensors to know exactly where everything and everyone is and it used these capabilities to bump off various characters.

Pretty much all of the technology described in the book could be implemented now but from a business perspective a lot of it would be unnecessary expense. A good example of this is toilets! In the book the personal cleaning systems are fully automatic, no manual intervention needed! It even has the capability to change the air in a room to get rid any “unsightly smells”. For a fraction of the cost I imagine most companies would be happy with a Glade Automatic Air Freshner.

It was a pretty decent read though which wasn’t difficult to get through so it was a good gift to receive.

On to the next one!

Book Review–Freedom TM

As mentioned previously I got this book for Christmas and I’ve really been looking forward to reading it as it’s the follow up to Daemon which I read last year.

Well, it lasted less than a week as I couldn’t put it down and I enjoyed it as much as the first one.

The premise of the first book was of this seeming evil distributed computer network, this book turns it completely on it’s head and the authorities and the corporations who come under attack suddenly become the enemy.

The underlying message of the first book was to make you think about what would happen to the world if someone wanted to use the Internet and modern technology to wage war on governments and businesses.

This book makes you look at why the governments and businesses are being attacked and raises some really good questions about society as a whole.

As with the first book some of technology used in the book is already here (such as Augmented Reality) which is a part of of the book that really fascinated.

I don’t want to spoil the plot so want say any. I’d highly recommend both of the books. They were right up my street!

You can pick up Freedom TM from Amazon

I really hope Daniel Suarez has other books planned as I’ll be picking them up straight away!

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?