Ferri's Clinical Advisor 2008: Instant Diagnosis and Treatment, Book, Website & PocketConsult Handheld Software

Product Description

FERRI'S CLINICAL ADVISOR 2008 offers a fast, effective way to access important diagnostic and therapeutic information on over 700 conditions. Its "5 books in 1" format offers key information on diseases and disorders · differential diagnosis · clinical algorithms · laboratory evaluations · and clinical preventive services. This package also includes access to a web site where you'll find all of the content from the book, as well as patient teaching guides in English and Spanish · and handheld software featuring the content from sections I, II, and IV and point-of-care information from other sections in the text. The result is a convenient, portable source for must-have guidance essential to everyday general practice.

* Provides key preventative information adapted from the US Preventative Health Task Force.
* Features billing codes, including ICD-9-CM codes to expedite insurance claims and reimbursements.



* Includes complete, bulleted information on every aspect of 701 diseases and disorders - 9 new in this edition.
* New approach to topics o

# ed information on every aspect of 701 diseases and disorders - 9 new in this edition.
# New approach to topics on "Seizures", revised and updated.
# Provides differential diagnoses for over 493 signs and symptoms - 25 new in this edition.
# Presents all of the information you need to interpret 214 laboratory tests.
# Includes at-a-glance algorithms for 331 conditions - 30 new to this edition.
# New recommendations for immunization and testing in Section V: Preventive Medicine.
# Provides handheld software featuring the content from sections I, II, and IV and point-of-care information from other sections in the text.
# Presents graded evidence-based medical information throughout - the only reference of its kind!.
# More than 60 new illustrations. Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #560591 in Books
* Published on: 2007-06-21
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 1584 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent reference!5
This is an excellent reference. Even in this age of "Up to Date" and "MDConsult," this is great. I'm always finding more features in it as I am looking for a specific topis.
This is the third edition I have purchssed and I've never been sorry.

Great Service5
Arrived earlier than I had anticipated. Great service, in excellent condition. Very fast response to my order.

a great reference book, especially for new students5
This is a great reference for primary care, especially for new entry med students, physician assistants and nurse practitioners. I use mine all the time,for a quick review of symptoms and problems.

Algebraic Methodology and Software Technology

Product Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Algebraic Methodology and Software Technology, AMAST 2008, held in Urbana, IL, USA, in July 2008. The 28 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 58 submissions. Among the topics covered are all current issues in formal methods related to algebraic and logical foundations, software technology, and to programming methodology including concurrent and reactive systems, evolutionary software/adaptive systems, logic and functional programming, object paradigms, constraint programming and concurrency, program verification and transformation, programming calculi, specification languages and tools, formal specification and development case studies, logic, category theory, relation algebra, computational algebra, algebraic foundations for languages and systems, coinduction, theorem proving and logical frameworks for reasoning, logics of programs, as well as algebra and coalgebra.

Product Details

* Published on: 2008-08-15
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 432 pages

Department of Defense Sponsored Information Security Research: New Methods for Protecting Against Cyber Threats by Department of Defense

Product Description

* After September 11th, the Department of Defense (DoD) undertook a massive and classified research project to develop new security methods using technology in order to protect secret information from terrorist attacks
* Written in language accessible to a general technical reader, this book examines the best methods for testing the vulnerabilities of networks and software that have been proven and tested during the past five years
* An intriguing introductory section explains why traditional security techniques are no longer adequate and which new methods will meet particular corporate and industry network needs
* Discusses software that automatically applies security technologies when it recognizes suspicious activities, as opposed to people having to trigger the deployment of those same security technologies

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #450959 in Books
* Published on: 2007-07-17
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 688 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover
THESE PAGES SUMMARIZE FIVE YEARS OF EXTENSIVE RESEARCH.

Traditional information security methods are no longer adequate to protect critical infrastructures. The Department of Defense has funded extensive university research into enhanced security methods and technology, and this book highlights some of the most significant findings of this program. These articles and analyses offer high-value, leading-edge techniques and solutions for the future of information security.

* Learn to build in "smart" security at every level of a network, from individual computer components to the highest echelons of network control
* Use guarding techniques that allow individual components to recognize when their own behaviors are degrading and automatically shut down
* Apply improved analysis methods to validate code more extensively
* Discover new approaches to creating and using mobile code that's harder to break
* Create a Java environment that makes bogus code easier to detect and block
* Explore software that can automatically recognize suspicious sequences and apply key security policies

About the Author
In 2001, the Director of Defense research and Engineering in the Office of the Secretary of Defense initiated an $80 million, five-year research program at U.S. universities in critical infrastructure protection and high confidence adaptable software. Managed by the Department of Defense science offices, these projects produced the results summarized here.

Fixing Windows XP Annoyances by David A. Karp

Product Description

Windows XP is the most popular operating system on the planet--and the most annoying. From incomprehensible error messages to inexplicable crashes, from wonky wireless setups to just finding a file, Windows can make your computing life a nightmare. But thanks to Fixing Windows XP Annoyances, you can banish the bugs, speed up operations, and just make Windows work right.

Inspired by author David Karp's Windows XP Annoyances for Geeks, this all-new tome pulls together tips, tricks, insider workarounds, and fixes for PC novices and pros, in a handy, accessible Q&A format that lets you find the solutions in a flash. Fixing Windows XP Annoyances will not only increase your productivity but lower your blood pressure. Karp's new book covers:

* Setup and Hardware-Update Windows, reinstall Windows safely, speed up start up, resolve driver-hardware conflicts, and more.
* Windows Interface-Navigate quickly, fix screen resolution problems, customize the desktop, and switch applications more quickly.
* Windows Explorer-Force XP's file & folder management application to remember your view settings, save your default application choices, and get XP's Search tool to behave.
* Multimedia-Having a problem playing a video or burning a CD? Want to do more with your digital photo collection? We have the answers.
* Web and Email-Get a handle on spyware, spam and pop-ups; protect your privacy online; learn how to improve your online experience.
* Wireless and Home Networking-Connect all your PCs; share Internet connections; share files and drives securely; make your wireless network purr; share network printers; and more.

If you're having a problem, just look through the Table of Contents for the annoyance that most closely matches your problem, or feel free to start thumbing through the pages. You'll likely find a fix to a problem you didn't even know could be solved.

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #238211 in Books
* Published on: 2006-03-15
* Format: Illustrated
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 219 pages

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Microsoft Windows XP may be the latest in a popular family of operating systems, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. However, the designers of Windows XP have built enough flexibility into their product and provided users with a sufficiently large toolkit to overcome most shortcomings. In Windows XP Annoyances David Karp reveals his ideas about how to use Windows XP most effectively, for maximum fun and productivity and as little aggravation as possible. If you're comfortable working with Windows XP (or any of its recent predecessors) but find certain aspects of it, well, annoying, you'll find this book to your liking. Karp guides his readers through potentially risky procedures, such as editing the Registry and adjusting hardware device drivers, with skill and precision.

The author's tone is to the point and professional without being dry, without any of the phony, forced humor that appears in a lot of operating-system books. Though he inexplicably ignores the Windows XP Power Toys--some very handy utilities you can get from Microsoft's Web site--he does a great job of handling important questions. Case in point, the important issue of which files can be deleted to free up disk space, and which you shouldn't touch even though they look like pointless garbage. Similarly useful attention goes to the question of which background processes can be safely halted, and which are important. There's fine coverage of scripting with the Windows Script Host (WSH), as well. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to get the most out of Windows XP, even when it appears that the operating system is working against you. Troubleshooting techniques, hardware advice, Registry hacking, interface customization, and advanced networking subjects all find a place in this book.

About the Author
Windows expert David Karp is the author of O'Reilly's bestselling "Windows Annoyances" series of books, including his latest, "Windows XP Annoyances for Geeks". He also co-authored "Windows XP in a Nutshell". A clear and engaging writer, he is a consistent voice for empowering Windows users to get more out of their operating system, and his annoyances.com web site has garnered a sizeable following. David has also written "eBay Hacks" and "eBay: The Missing Manual".
Customer Reviews

Not the clearest sometimes, but...4
While some of the content wasn't easy to implement, I got quite a bit of use out of it. I tend to go back to it from time to time, even.

Why does XP need so much fixing?4
There are many things about Windows "professional" that isn't. It has puppy dogs and talking paper clips. All files gravitate towards "My Documents" and "My Pictures" and often the only way to get to "My Engineering Files" is to click first the desktop icon, then "My Computer" icon, then the drive letter... I want the operating system to get out of my way and let me work. And yet Windows is notorious for putting all sorts of settings in obscure locations that are the last place you might look for them. Hence there are so many utilities for configuring your system the way you want it. Unfortunately, these utilities just do it without telling you how it is done.
This book directly addresses most of these annoying features and explains how (and why) to fix them. In so doing it provides a great deal of insight into the MS mentality. There are of course other annoyances not covered in the book, but I now have a much better idea where to look for them.

Fixing Windows XP Annoyances1
Purchasing this book was a mistake. I expected something similar to
"Windows 98 Annoyances" by the same author. There was no chapter on the Registry, and little or no information about the Registry.

Juniper and Cisco Routing: Policy and Protocols for Multivendor Networks by Walter J. Goralski

Product Description

Discusses how network traffic flow is complicated by the fact that each routing vendor has its own propietary implementation or extension to the routing protocols.
Covers both Juniper and Cisco routing, and touches on other vendor implementations.
Focuses on routing policy, covering Border Gateway Protocol in depth.
Includes real-world multivendor configuration examples.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #636113 in Books
Published on: 2002-09-13
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
640 pages
Editorial Reviews

Book Info
Goralski sheds some much-needed light on this intricate protocol-policy relationship by offering two important benefits where other routing books fall short. He covers both Juniper and Cisco, and touches on other vendor implementations.

From the Back Cover
Obtain a clear understanding of how routing information and traffic flows on a multivendor network

Routing policies for networks are often complex and not well understood. Many books detail the operation of routing protocols such as OSPF or BGP, but none place the protocols in the context of routing policies and the real world of ISP peering and customer relationships. Once realistic expectations of packet routing behavior are added to the basic routing protocols, routing policies are unavoidable. Fortunately, Walter Goralski sheds some much-needed light on this intricate protocol-policy relationship by offering two important benefits where other routing books fall short.

Goralski covers both Juniper and Cisco, and touches on other vendor implementations. Next, he focuses on real routing policy situations-the way routing domains actually work-instead of just detailing the protocol anatomy. Real-world multivendor configuration examples make this a hands-on guide for the network engineer or administrator who needs to optimize network traffic flows.

Topics covered include:
* Addressing and routing
* Subnets and supernets
* ISP peering and routing policies
* Cisco and Juniper Networks router configuration
* Routing Information Protocol (RIP)
* Configuring RIP, OSPF, IS-IS, and BGP
* Routing policies for all networking situations

About the Author
WALTER J. GORALSKI is an instructor and course developer at Juniper Networks, the number-two vendor of network routing products. Goralski has more than 35 years of experience in data communications, including 14 years at AT&T. He has written seven books on networking topics, the most recent one on optical networking.
Customer Reviews

great book about routing policy
You cannot find other books have so much infomation about real network description on routing policy. Like IS-IS L2-L1 route leaking, you cannot find so detailed information on other books.

Putting It All Together
Everyone knows Juniper is a routing player. Heck, their best guys came from Cisco. This is the first book I've seen that really nails the tech issues of routing when you have both Juniper and Cisco on your network. I highly recommend it.

Professional InfoPath 2003 by Ian Williams

Product Description

What is this book about?

Microsoft InfoPath 2003 helps developers tackle forms-based information-gathering with the full range of XML technologies. This book quickly guides experienced Office and XML developers through InfoPath fundamentals, including XML form templates architecture, form definition file structure, available external data sources, and backend services. From there, you delve into validation and updating forms, both during development and as business needs change. Finally, you examine the InfoPath security model, learning to implement and deploy trusted forms.

The second part of this book is an intensive case study covering metadata processing, exporting XML data to Excel for analysis, and much more.

What does this book cover?

Here are just a few of the things you'll learn in this book:
The development options InfoPath makes available through XML technology
How to combine various form files into a customized template
The architecture of an InfoPath form template and the file types you can use in various applications
Ways to build a form interface using menus or objects on the task pane
Methods to support users at various levels of experience
Different means of validating forms and reporting errors
How to implement digital signatures and other form security measures with InfoPath

Who is this book for?

This book is for experienced corporate developers who have a strong knowledge of XML and related technologies as well as solid experience with Microsoft Office and related applications.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #322740 in Books
Published on: 2004-04-23
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
408 pages
Editorial Reviews

Book Info
Helps developers tackle forms-based information-gathering with the full range of XML technologies. Softcover.

From the Back Cover
Microsoft InfoPath 2003 helps developers tackle forms-based information-gathering with the full range of XML technologies. This book quickly guides experienced Office and XML developers through InfoPath fundamentals, including XML form templates architecture, form definition file structure, available external data sources, and backend services. From there, you’ll delve into validation and updating forms, both during development and as business needs change. Finally, you’ll examine the InfoPath security model, learning to implement and deploy trusted forms.

The second part of this book is an intensive case study covering metadata processing, exporting XML data to Excel for analysis, and much more.

What you will learn from this book
The development options InfoPath makes available through XML technology
How to combine various form files into a customized template
The architecture of an InfoPath form template and the file types you can use in various applications
Ways to build a form interface using menus or objects on the task pane
Methods to support users at various levels of experience
Different means of validating forms and reporting errors
How to implement digital signatures and other form security measures with InfoPath

Who is this book for?

This book is for experienced corporate developers who have a strong knowledge of XML and related technologies as well as solid experience with Microsoft® Office and related applications.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

About the Author
Ian Williams is an information designer specializing in XML technologies and a software technical writer. He worked in the UK publishing industry before getting involved in information technology at OWL International, developers of one of the first commercial hypertext products. Ian was a product manager there, and later a consultant working with large corporate customers.
Since 1998 Ian has worked independently on technical writing and information design projects for customers like Nokia and Reuters. He lives with his wife in London, England, from which they regularly escape to a house on a beach overlooking the English Channel.

Pierre Greborio is chief software architect of PEWay, an Italian software company providing services and Internet technologies for financial companies.
Born in 1971 in Belgium, he graduated as a telecommunication engineer from the University of Pavia in Italy.
His activity is characterized by a strong passion for technology. He participated in several talks at developer conferences and university workshops and wrote several articles for developer magazines and user groups about Microsoft .NET technologies and Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003. In the beginning of 2003, Pierre was given the award of Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for .NET.
Customer Reviews

Ok, complicated topic, or is it ? Net/Net: Wait for next book.
Like so many technology books, this sits in a topic space where there is just not a lot of material to draw from. Much like its cousins, BizTalk, SiteServer, and CRM - there is not a wealth of information available in print media. Ok, so what makes this book a bummer?

A reasonable person would assume that when you buy a book for $40-60, that you are getting something insightful - something that you would have traded your sister for to have figured out without spinning your wheels endlessly or burning support incidents @ $225 a pop. Unfortunately, this book adopts the lowest possible threshold in terms of content. Here's the irony: I sat down to plug away at an InfoPath Solution and figured I'd follow the book just to see what happened. By Page 10 I was annoyed. By Page 20 I was checking the Index and Appendix to search for my specific interests (after all, I had something I wanted to get on with). An hour later, I was consulting some very cool material online, complete with blow-by-blow examples, code shots, and visuals. Book has been sitting in its last known good configuration since then. What's worse, a simple search on the InfoPath help topic yielded EXACTLY the same material as in the book. Well WTF. It turns out that Wrox's authors basically pillaged and regugitated the Help file - almost verbatim. That's what prompted me to write this. I didn't have to pay for the book, but if I did - I would be plenty pissed-off right now....and shortly after I calmed down, Barnes and Noble (err...or Amazon, yeah that's it!) would be getting my return. Naturally, at that point I would have burned 5 hours between shopping, buying, reading, commenting and returning the book - which is a gross waste of time. Save yours: listen up.

The first 4 chapters of this book talk about XML, Schemas, DTD's, XSLT, and reference materials. Honestly, there's so much useless information here, you might as well read the intro and go straight to Chapter 5. Why? For several resons: I don't need a reference book on XML, or any of its cousins. That's already published for free. Plus, InfoPath takes all of that pain away. Drag and drop, link controls to bindings, choose a data source, link it to your bindings and away you go. I don't need to read 100 pages of materials on the inner workings - we know it works, that's why we're using it. Only the most bleeding edge / neurotic / hardcore developers with weird requirements are ever going to have to mess around with that stuff. Rapid Applications Development anyone? - That's what InfoPath was designed for.

Chapters 5,6,7,8 are the meat. Chapters 15,16,17 have worthwhile examples of ADO.NET script.


What I would like to see:

Working examples of full-on solutions. Fabrikam, BizTalk, SQL, BI.

More code shots.

Show me how to design a Form within Visual Studio.Net 2003/2005, and work the code-behind to do neat stuff.
Show me how I can develop solutions using SharePoint, XML, and BizTalk.
Show me how to create a custom Web Service? (this is, ahem, rather important, and not very well done)

Solutions people. Rapid development. Small books that put you in the driver's seat ASAP.

This isn't it.

Note: One of the best publishers I have seen recently re: Technical Books has to be Rational Press. I have found their books to be highly insightful, right to the heart of the matter, and @ sub-100 (or thereabouts) pages, you get a lot of bang for $20 bucks.

(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=s_sf_b_as/002-0585726-2670403)

Wrox: Are you listening? Bad Monkeys. Stop the proliferation of title after title. It's like like dating a Narcissitic woman: they're so in love with themselves that they LIVE to hear themselves talk: even if it's complete Tripe that comes out of their mouths.

Technologists (aspirinig or professionals) would do well to remember that Wrox is in the business of publishing and selling books: that doesn't always mean that they are worth your time or your money. I have watched Wrox's value as a print resource slowly degrade since I stated reading their titles in 2000. In my opinion, they are no longer a trusted (and valued) informational resource. Wrox has saturated the marketplace with title after sub-title - many of which never should have received their own cover, much less their whopping price tags. (Do you guys publish books at any other price point other than $50.00?) Not many, to be sure.

Potential buyers: think, read, and review before you buy any technology book. Wait for the next offering on InfoPath (if there is one before Office v.12). Your best bet will be online: MSDN, GotDotNet, BizTalk, and some other very neat sites that specialize in valuable content - for free! Google it. You won't be sorry.

ch

Not for Dummies
Professional InfoPath 2003 is definately not "InfoPath for Dummies". This in-depth look at the behind the scenes technology of InfoPath is an XML-lovers dream - excellent details regarding how InfoPath uses xml technology. If you are looking for a "how to use InfoPath" book, this isn't it. If you are a programmer who wants or needs to know every detail of how InfoPath uses xml, you've found the right book.

Imperfect XML: Rants, Raves, Tips, and Tricks ... from an Insider by David Megginson

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #989449 in Books
Published on: 2004-12-18
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
256 pages
Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Most books in this area are either beginners' guides, in-depth reference works to the foundational standards, or guides to using XML in particular environments or application areas. This book takes a broader approach for non-beginners and describes where XML can be used profitably in the real world. Highly recommended."
--Dr. Marc J. Hadley, Senior Staff Engineer, Web Technologies and Standards division, Sun Microsystems

"Imperfect XML is a thorough and engaging exploration of the issues XML practitioners are likely to face, with considered advice from one of the trailblazing authorities in the field."
--Neil Bradley, XML and Publishing Consultant and author of The XML Companion, The XSL Companion, and The XML Schema Companion

XML projects can fail for all kinds of reasons, from unrealistic overall goals to mishandled low-level technical decisions. Fortunately, one of the world's leading XML experts is ready to show you how to avoid XML pitfalls on your next project.

Since its invention, David Megginson has been helping to drive XML to new levels. He led the team that developed the SAX streaming API now used worldwide, has been a key contributor to the World Wide Web Consortium, and has served as a consultant to many of the world's leading companies, including Boeing, Reuters, and McGraw-Hill. Drawing on this vast experience, Megginson offers in this book expert solutions and problem-solving guidance for virtually any XML project challenge. You'll discover best practices for planning, budgeting, scheduling, and managing any XML project: content management, data interchange, legacy integration, or Web services. And you'll find technical insights that only an expert like Megginson can offer.

Coverage includes
Setting expectations and planning for extensibility-- key success factors in XML projects
Choosing standards, technical approaches, and architecture
Overcoming hidden pitfalls in single-source publishing from XML source
Intelligent searching with XML: essential design and implementation strategies
Using XML in enterprise integration: practical realities and workarounds
Scaling smoothly from demo to production system
Making XML fast: real help for overcoming XML performance problems
Managing the security risks associated with sending XML data across the Internet
Recognizing when XML technology is wrong for your project

From start to finish, Imperfect XML presents a clear-eyed view of XML's advantages and limitations--and technical and management solutions proven to make it work.



About the Author

David Megginson, principal of Megginson Technologies, has been active within the SGML and XML communities since 1991. He led the original initiative that created SAX, the leading streaming API for XML that has been implemented in products by IBM, Oracle, Apache, and Sun. He also chaired the XML Information Set Working Group at the W3C Consortium and was a member of its XML Working Group. In 2000, he received the Java Technology Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Java Community from Sun and JavaPro magazine.



Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Welcome to your second book about the Extensible Markup Language (XML). This may in fact be your third or twentieth XML book, but I did not design it to be your first. This book does not introduce the basics of XML syntax, explain how popular APIs and tools work, or offer design patterns or recipes for writing XML applications--many other XML books do an excellent job of that. Instead this book is about XML planning and decision making. Everyone involved with an XML project has to make decisions of some kind: whether to support XML at all, how to plan and schedule a project, what kind of goals to set, what standards to support, or what technical approaches to take. The best standards and libraries available will not help you at all if you try to use XML the wrong way or if XML is not the right technology for your project.

XML and its family of related specifications can be a complex and disruptive technology. The business success or failure of many XML projects hinges on the tiniest technical details, such as the choice of a parsing API; the technical success or failure of many XML projects depends on human factors, such as human resources and office politics. These responsibilities are usually divided between technologists and managers, but that division does not work as well for XML: A manager needs to master an unusually large number of technical details to plan and run an XML-related project, and a technologist needs to spend much more time than usual thinking about business needs and people skills to build effective systems.

As a result, this book deliberately takes a middle-level view of XML decision making, concentrating on the gray area between low-level technical issues and high-level management issues, the area that most technical books ignore. This book has many simple examples of XML markup and some source code listings, but nothing too complicated; there are many basic references of costs and benefits but little hard-core business theory and few case studies--and not a single pie chart--guaranteed. This is a book of XML rants, raves, tips, and tricks.

Together with facts, such as descriptions of specifications, this book contains many of my personal opinions, such as statements about the success or failure of individual specifications. I trust that you will be capable of distinguishing the two and that even when you disagree with the opinions, you will find them useful for identifying areas where other people are likely to disagree. In particular, unlike most XML-related books, this book tries not to overhype the technology.
The Idea of XML

Some of us inside the XML community believe that the technology is very useful but that it has been oversold. When XML first emerged in the late 1990s, the World Wide Web Consortium W3C and others promoted it not only as a technology but also as a social idea. Technically, XML was a simpler replacement for the older, complicated Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). Socially, it was supposed to be the next logical step past the Hypertext Markup Language HTML and the Web, ending the browser wars and enabling users to do new kinds of things on the Web, such as using software agents to analyze structured online information and perform such tasks as finding the lowest price for a pair of jeans. A common early description of XML, "SGML for the Web," touches on both ideas.

Technically, the core XML standard has been a runaway success. Several years on, there is little doubt that XML has replaced SGML: Vendors do not release new SGML products, and nearly all markup conferences have dropped SGML from their titles. People do not start new SGML projects, and the number of older SGML projects still being maintained shrinks every year. As a technology, XML has met and surpassed its technical goal of providing a simpler alternative to SGML. XML is easier than SGML ever was: For example, I spent six fruitless months of spare evenings trying to implement even a skeletal SGML parser in Java; I had the first prototype of the AElfred XML parser running after a few hours' work. SGML documents were almost never perfectly portable across systems, because all parsers supported different entity-resolution mechanisms and different SGML declarations; XML documents move seamlessly from parser to parser, XSLT engine to XSLT engine. XML is not without its own warts, but it has done well enough that it has infected many areas that SGML barely touched, such as save formats and configuration files for desktop applications. It has come to the point that developers feel that they have to justify not using XML as the basis for any new file format.

Socially, however, XML has not done nearly so well. Technical superiority is not enough: New technologies, such as the Internet, railroads, or vaccination, succeed because of a strong, contagious social message. Parents convince other parents to have their children inoculated; friends get their friends to use e-mail or text messaging so that they can communicate; small towns once competed with one another to have railroads pass through them to avoid being left behind by the new economy.

Most people do not care that XML is cleaner and easier to implement than other file formats: People want to know what XML will let them do and why they should do that. If XML does not capture people's imaginations--if it does not, at least in some small way, change their lives--it will stay just another tool in a technologist's toolbox, like Unicode or structured programming. If that happens, all the people who have invested heavily in XML start-ups and products are going to be very disappointed.

To date, XML in general has not managed to affect people's lives the way peer-to-peer file transfer, cell phones, video games, text messaging, or automated teller machines have. XML came out in 1998; today, one compelling social trend--Web logs, or blogs--happens to use XML, but more general XML applications have not yet succeeded. In 2004, despite the continuing hype, XML lacks momentum.

That lack of momentum matters a lot to anyone planning an XML project: An XML implementer has to start almost from scratch each time, convincing yet another small group of managers and users that XML is a good idea for them and working with their strengths and weaknesses to integrate XML into their small social group. If the project is successful, it ends up as an XML island, with little or no connection to other small XML islands.
If XML is not the answer, however, it may be part of it. Many quiet but critical infrastructure technologies--ASCII, Unicode, the Internet Protocol (IP), and the Transmission Control Protocol--provide a firm foundation for higher-level successes, such as the Web. As mentioned earlier, XML is already the foundation of the Web log movement, and that movement has significantly transformed the Web. XML did not make that transformation happen but provided a basic technology that made it easier for bloggers to share information, and provided software, libraries, and best practices to help them do it.
Structure of the Book

This book consists of three major parts.
Part One (Chapters 1 and 2) deals with making initial high-level decisions about XML, concentrating on standards support and project planning.
Part Two (Chapters 3-5) introduces the three major areas of XML work--documents, data, and networking--together with detailed discussions of the advantages, disadvantages, and special issues involved in making design and implementation decisions for each one.
Part Three (Chapters 6-8) concentrates on special issues that affect all areas of XML and require more detailed discussion: searching, working with legacy, or non-XML data, and XML performance and size.

You do not need to read the chapters in order: Each one is designed as a free-standing essay or article on a major XML topic, with only occasional cross-references. It would probably be a good idea, however, to start by reading Chapter 1, on XML standards and specifications, as a knowledge of XML specifications is useful background information for any XML reading.

If you are looking for information on specific topics, the glossary, bibliography, and index make excellent starting points. Use the glossary to find definitions of unfamiliar terms or concepts, and then use the index to find where the book discusses them.


0131453491P11192004
Customer Reviews

good descriptions of XML disadvantages
Ideally, you should already be using XML, to gain the most from this book. The author gives a guide to the huge overlayer of extensions and standards that have accrued atop XML, like barnacles on a ship. Unfortunately, threading this maze to understand what you might really need is not easy for many. So his viewpoint might help you.

Also, at the implementation level, he offers practical advice about such key usages as XML data. He gives advantages and disadvantages. The latter is the best part of the book. Because other books that might explain the topic to someone new to it often just talk about the syntax and the great things that you can accomplish. Rarely will such texts discuss any limitations that have been found through painful experience.

It's not just for XML data that he does this. For documents, networking, searching, performance and legacy information, he analyses the disadvantages.

If only the title matched the content
It's a little tough to review this book since in general this is a nice walkthrough of a variety of XML standards. The title, however, hints at a book that would discuss schema design and common XML issues. There is a need for that book, but this is not that book.

This book is a relatively short straightforward walkthrough of XML markup, data standards, searching, legacy conversions and performance. It's around 200 pages with around 20 pages. The tone is light but terse. Graphics are sparse and are used effectively.

I think this would be an ideal introductory work for someone just starting out with XML. Though I think there are other books that are as good or better.

If only this book had the content implied by it's title.

The Oxford Compendium of English (Dictionary & Thesaurus) From Oxford University Press

Product Description

The Oxford Compendium of English is the ideal reference source for language lovers. With one volume containing definitive English language usage guidance and practical hints on communicating, another volume filled with the most up-to-date and easily accessible quotations and proverbs, and another volume providing a dictionary and thesaurus from Oxford's unrivalled language database, this is essential reading for the home and the office. OXFORD LANGUAGE REFERENCE DT Comprehensive and practical advice on English grammar and usage DT Essential information on writing skills, punctuation, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, and common confusables DT The use of English as an international language DT Information on public speaking, including a checklist for making a business speech OXFORD DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS AND PROVERBS DT More than 7,000 quotations, arranged thematically for easy look-up DT Quotations on every subject you can think of, from traditional topics like Courage or Knowledge, to topical and contemporary themes such as The Internet or Genetic Engineering DT Over 1,000 proverbs, plus special categories including Catchphrases, Film Lines, Official Advice, and Political Slogans OXFORD DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS DT Over a quarter of a million dictionary definitions, entries, and alternative words DT Extra pronunciation and language help DT Special Reverse Dictionary supplement
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #4341302 in Books
Published on: 2001-11
Binding: Hardcover
1552 pages
Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Jonathan Law is an editor at Market House Books Ltd, compilers of dictionaries. Jonathan Law has compiled the Oxford Language Reference volume with the co-operation of Oxford University Press especially for the Book Club Associates. The Oxford Quotations and Proverbs volume is edited by Susan Ratcliffe, and The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus volume is edited by Julia Elliott.