Book Reviews
Dan
Gillmor, columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, A-list blogger,
and a darned good writer, has written a book on the blogging
phenomenon that might just save all of us some time.
-
Those
of you who are interested in blogging and think you’d like to
try it can find out much about it – not just the technical
mechanics – but the far more interesting things like why do
people do this? Whom are they writing for?
Who reads this stuff?
-
And
those of you who have no intention of ever blogging at all but
just want to know why some of us do, can read this book and see
if Dan can help you figure it out.
Think
of it as a kind of history of how and why it happened, with colorful
examples of every kind of blogging, all over the world.
There’s a particular emphasis on how blogging is changing
how information is collected, distributed, exchanged, and valued and
how that affects the traditional roles of readers (who may become
more active participants in the process) and journalists (whom may
become bloggers, but who may also sometimes find themselves
“scooped” in the blogosphere by passionate amateurs.
You
will want to read it.
We
the Media: Grassroots
Journalism by the People, for the People, Dan Gillmor, ISBN
0-596-00733-7 (O’Reilly, 2004).
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I
am an eager subscriber to an occasional newsletter from Joel Spolsky.
His Joel on Software tries to elevate the level of software
development and somehow manages to carry on that conversation in a
way that mere mortals (that is to say, non-programmers) can follow
the discussion.
Much
of what he writes about it usability, how important it is to users,
and how difficult it is to get programmers to appreciate its
virtues.
He
has just published a second book of selections from his newsletter.
The full title is "Joel
on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That
Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and
Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck,
Work with Them in Some Capacity," but he promises
that you can call it "Joel+37" or "Joel, The
Book."
It
includes 45 articles from the Joel on Software archive and Joel
points out its handy for hurling during arguments with colleagues. You can find it on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590593898
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Book Review:
Linux For Non-Geeks
It is unlikely to come as a surprise to
our readers that we have been fooling around with the idea of
setting up a Linux desktop. In
our case the question isn’t just, “Can we manage Linux with our
in-house skills,” but also, “Which Linux.”
We’ve found a very helpful book you
might like to know about. It’s
a guidebook for new Linux users called LINUX FOR NON-GEEKS, which
the author, Rickford Grant, wrote originally as a set of notes for
his entirely non-technical mother. I can’t imagine a better recommendation than that, if
you’re looking for a non-techie approach.
Be warned.
This is still Linux and there are still Linuxy tasks to
perform, albeit with assistance, pictures, and generally with a GUI
interface. The
book comes with a set of Red Hat Fedora Core CD’s. Some software is included in the CD’s, so you have
something to practice loading and launching with, and you are
directed to download sites for me.
All in all, a nice approach.
We may even try loading Linux on one of our old computer
(we’ve got one we just cleared off for that purpose) as our summer
science project.
Linux for Non-Geeks, Rickford Grant,
(Non Starch Press, San Francisco, 2004), ISBN 1-59327-034-8.
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