The Unauthorized Biography of the Baby Bells & Info-Scandal Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Kushnick does a great public service by uncovering what many who are close to regulation already know, the Bell companies have been callingthe regulatory shots for years. Its time for real regulatory reform and real competition -- and the end of pandering to the multi-billion dollar telephone monopolists. Its time to require the spinoff of the monopoly local loops. The FCC's recent audits uncovering billions of dollars of missing central office equipment supports Kushnick's disclosures.

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This book is the first expose about the Baby Bells. It main story, "Info-scandal" describes how the Bells promised to deploy advanced networks, including the 500 channel, fiber optic, Info Highway services, but instead, most likely kept the money, costing customers an estimated $30 billion. (The original Baby Bells include Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell (SBC Comm) and US West.) The Foreword is by Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of "Ethernet", and the founder of 3Com and Infoworld.

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Zero Day Threat: The Shocking Truth of How Banks and Credit Bureaus Help Cyber Crooks Steal Your Money and Identity Review

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(More customer reviews)Technology managers can face a big challenge trying to get senior
management to understand that effective security is well worth the
investment. Real-world stories make their job easier. This
extraordinarily well-written book contains the richest set of stories
about real cyber attacks ever assembled.


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"If you bank or manage your stocks online, you have to read this book. Cyberspace is making all sorts of things possible. Unfortunately, among them are fraud, theft, and espionage-all of which can directly impact you."--Richard Clarke, noted counterterrorism expert and bestselling author of Against All Enemies

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CCSP CSI Exam Certification Guide (2nd Edition) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Pros:
a) The book covers the examination syllabus almost entirely
b) The chapters are concise
c) The scenarios at the end are a good preparation for the
examination.
Cons:
a) A number of typos in the examples - was this book published
in a hurry?
b) Content is repeated across different chapters.
c) The safe white papers at http://cisco.com/go/safe
are more comprehensive, have no typos and best of all,
are free.

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The official self-study test preparation guide for the CCSP CSI exam 642-541

This study guide helps you master all the topics on the CCSP CSI exam, including
Classifying and mitigating network attacks
Securing designs for small, medium-sized, remote-user, and enterprise networks
Understanding the SAFE network modules
Using Host IPS and the Cisco Security Agent
Identifying security threats
Securing a wireless network
Applying the SAFE Blueprint to networks utilizing IP telephony
Implementing appropriate security products to prevent or counteract vulnerabilities
Defining a security policy
Using the Cisco Secure product portfolio, including perimeter security, IDS, secure connectivity, security management, and Cisco AVVID
Understanding the SAFE architectural overview

CCSP CSI Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, is a best-of-breed Cisco exam study guide that focuses specifically on the objectives for the CSI exam. Inside, you'll find preparation hints and test-taking tips to help you identify areas of weakness and improve both your conceptual and hands-on knowledge of network security.

CCSP CSI Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, presents you with an organized test preparation routine through the use of proven series elements and techniques. "Do I Know This Already?" quizzes open each chapter and allow you to decide how much time you need to spend on each section. Foundation Summary lists and tables make referencing easy and give you a quick refresher whenever you need it. Challenging chapter-ending review questions reinforce key concepts. An entire chapter of scenarios helps you place the exam objectives in real-world situations, thus increasing recall during exam time. New in this edition is coverage of wireless networks, IP telephony, Host Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), and enterprise networks.

The companion CD-ROM contains a powerful testing engine that allows you to focus on individual topic areas or take a complete, timed exam. The assessment engine tracks your performance and provides feedback on a module-by-module basis, presenting links to the text for further review and helping you devise a complete study plan.

Well-regarded for its level of detail, assessment features, challenging review questions, and hands-on exercises, this book helps you master the concepts and techniques that will enable you to succeed on the exam the first time.

CCSP CSI Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, is part of a recommended study program from Cisco Systems that includes simulation and hands-on training from authorized Cisco Learning Partners and self-study products from Cisco Press. To find out more about instructor-led, e-learning, and hands-on instruction offered by authorized Cisco Learning Partners worldwide, please visit www.cisco.com/go/authorizedtraining.

Companion CD-ROMThe CD-ROM contains more than 200 practice questions for the CCSP CSI exam, including simulation-based questions and the full text in electronic format.

CD-ROM test engine powered by www.boson.com. Boson Software is a Cisco Learning Partner.

This volume is part of the Exam Certification Guide Series from Cisco Press. Books in this series provide officially developed exam preparation materials that offer assessment, review, and practice to help Cisco certification candidates identify weaknesses, concentrate their study efforts, and enhance their confidence as exam day nears.

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Building Operational Excellence: Strategies to Improve It People and Processes Review

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(More customer reviews)The objectives of this book are to achieve an operational posture that is based on mature processes and an organizational structure that is efficient and delivers value to the business.
The authors take a pragmatic approach by making the distinction between best practices from an industry-wide perspective and selective use of best practices to ensure that only those that make sense in the pursuit of your organization are chosen. The three fundamental steps that are addressed by this approach are (1) determine your current operational posture, (2) define quality goals and (3) examine the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. The book is organized to lead you through these three steps in great detail, starting with a definition of best practices (Chapter 1) and laying the foundation by defining tasks and processes and how to move from task- to process-driven methods (Chapter 2). Gap analysis are process refinement are the topics of Chapter 4, which will provide the level of operational maturity to move to the most efficient model proposed in the book called centers of excellence (COE). The collection of COEs are comprised of groupings of core processes that are found in mature IT organizations. By grouping these processes in COEs you can achieve end-to-end service delivery as well as economy of scale. On paper it looks logical, but in practice it is not easy to achieve. In addition if COEs are not carefully structured there can be gaps of responsibility and accountability, which the authors note and provide advice about how to prevent these gaps. Chapter 5 provides a thorough discussion of metrics, while Chapter 6 ties together the concepts in the previous chapters.
The most valuable parts of this book are Chapter 7, which is a complete catalog of core processes ranging from application optimization to workload monitoring (31 processes in all) and Chapter 8, which gives eight COE catalogs. The processes in Chapter 7 are depicted with two scales ranging from 1 to 10 for automation and stability, with the following 8 characteristics: (1) tasks, (2) skills, (3) staffing, (4) automation technology, (5) best practices, (6) metrics, (7) process integration and (8) futures. The COE catalogs are slightly different and are structured as follows: (1) attributes, (2) processes, (3) skills, (4) automation, (5) best practices, (6) metrics, and (7) futures.
While I think this is a 5-star book that makes an important contribution to IT operational excellence, it isn't without a few flaws. I noticed a few minor problems as the book leads you through a typical process-oriented structure to a COE-based one, such as system administration not being placed in one of the COEs. This is a possible editing error in the book. I also thought that the 1 to 10 scales for automation and stability were defined too ambiguously and the scales are too fine grained given the arbitrary definitions assigned. Many of the illustrations were too busy and misleading. However, the material in this book is so well thought out and supported by compelling value propositions that the flaws are easy to overlook. Overall this book represents a major contribution to the small--but growing--body of knowledge about IT operations management.

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This book shows IT managers exactly how to assess their own organizational processes, and then improve those processes to "best practice" levels -- starting today. Drawing on META Group's worldwide enterprise consulting experience, it introduces a new way to understand IT processes, and a step-by-step approach to defining goals, filling in gaps, eliminating weaknesses, and achieving excellence. This book focuses on five core areas of IT management: operations, engineering support, finance, security, and customer relationship management (CRM). The authors introduce Centers of Excellence (COEs): clusters of interrelated IT tasks that, when properly sequenced, can be the building blocks of "best practice" processes. Building on this concept, they show how to define IT processes that optimize efficiency and effectiveness across the IT organization; integrate and automate similar tasks and processes; improve accountability and correlate IT processes with service-level agreements; assign costs more accurately; and -- above all -- provide a consistent, excellent customer experience. For all IT managers seeking to improve the quality, timeliness, and value of the services they provide.

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Electric Power Substations Engineering (The Electric Power Engineering Hbk, Second Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)Book gives a broad overview of substations, but not very detailed. If you have anything more than a passing interesting how substations work this book will not be much use to you. I started a new job as a commisioner and this book was of little benefit to me. Not enough details on the inner workings of power protection and switchgear.

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Electric Power Substations Engineering provides a comprehensive overview of substations, from their fundamental concepts to their design, automation, operation, and physical and cyber security. Each of its 18 sections is authored by leading members of IEEE's Substations committee and written as a self-contained tutorial, complete with industry standards and references. The book's organization and level of detail make it ideal for electric power engineering professionals looking for in-depth design information and for other engineering professionals needing general information on a particular topic.

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Practical Java™ Programming Language Guide Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Practical Java Programming Language Guide used the "essay" style similar to "Effective C++" to explain some issues in Java. It covers General Technique,Object and Equality, Exception Handling, Performance, Multithreading and Class & Interface with total 68 'Praxis'.
This 'essay' style is my favorite. It represents topics in each small 'essay' and you can easily pick up the topic you are interested in without getting lost, or just read the book from cover-to-cover. It is also very useful for checking up something in which you'd like to have more understanding. You won't get bored there!
I would say this book is for intermediate to advance Java programmer. It is not a book to learn how to program in Java, it is a good book to get more understanding with Java. It will help you learn more about Java, become a better Java programmer. I feel like I've learn a lot even with my 4-years professional Java programming experience. Also, if you are new to Java, this book will help you Ace your Java interview:)
Sometimes, as a programmer, we tend to forget the low-level details as to why we do things that way. For example, the difference between "==" and ".equals()", we all know we need to use .equals() to comare Object reference, use "==" for primitive data type. After reading this book, I know more about "why" we did things that way than just "what" to do. That's just a small example, I bet you'll find lots of "ah-ha" monents in reading this book.
One shortcoming I'd like to point out is there are some duplicates in explaining some topic. Maybe the author wanted to emphasis some points but I feel like it is redundant. e.g. both Praxis 11 and praxis 15 talk about how to immplement equals() method which I think only one would be enough. Also, it would be great if the broadth of the topic was expanded some more.
Overall, it is a great book. I've been enjoying reading it and find it very helpful. I am looking forward to something like "More practical Java programming Language Guide" coming...

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This book does for Java what Scott Meyers' classic Effective C++ did for C++: identifies the key practices and rules that enable good developers to become great developers. IBM Java expert Peter Haggar brings together 68 rules for writing better Java 2 code, complete with insightful discussions and real-world examples. These are the "rules of thumb" expert developers have discovered: guidelines that consistently lead to clear, correct, and efficient code. Haggar focuses on the key issues virtually every Java developer faces, from general techniques (such as when to use polymorphism and when not to use method overloading); to working with objects, exception handling, performance, multithreading, classes, interfaces, and beyond. Haggar has a remarkable talent for crystallizing a problem and solution, and communicating it in words and code. The result: a book that can help any Java developer get dramatically better results -- fast.

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The Lawyer's Guide to Internet Research Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of the best guides to Internet legal research available. The authors are both regular columnists for the respected LLRX.com web site, and their experience and good judgment shine through on every page. Highly recommended.
Jerry Lawson
Author of The Complete Internet Handbook for Lawyers (ABA 1999)

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The law library of the future is already here! This down-to-earth, practical guide (written from the perspective of a working attorney) takes the problem-solving steps that lawyers already use and shows how-and where-to do them on the Internet. It zeroes in on the best sites, sources, and techniques for finding cases, statutes, regulations, legislative history, government forms, public records, other attorneys, experts, and more. It identifies the governments and agencies that accept online communication-not to mention filings-and lists research sites, legal news sources, and general reference aids. It also demystifies search engines and other Internet tools and recommends hundreds of Web sites for both legal and general research problems. Includes a painless crash course on using e-mail and news groups and maximizing the efficient use of web browsers.The Lawyer's Guide to Internet Research is a pioneering book that leads lawyers, paralegals, legal assistants, and students through the transition from traditional to Internet research, and teaches them how to use the Internet to do the same work that they have been doing for years in their offices and libraries.Look for periodic updates of this book in the virtual pocket parts at www.fortunaworks.com, which also offers a free bulletin board for Internet research questions.

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