The Internet really hit the headlines in 1994. People started talking about it, newspapers started writing articles about it, and those weird-looking addresses full of dots and dashes started popping up at the end of TV shows and adverts. Ah yes, everyone said, knowingly. Hype. It’ll be something different next year. But something unexpected happened…

Unlike most other objects of media hype in recent years, after the dust has settled, millions of people are still using the Internet every day – for entertainment, for business, for leisure, to communicate with others, to learn or research, to buy goods, the list is almost endless. And every day the number of people using the Internet grows by thousands. If these people weren’t finding it useful or enjoyable, that number would instead be getting smaller.

These people can’t all be computer whiz-kids either, can they? In fact, you don’t have to be a technical genius to use the Internet. As long as you’re reasonably comfortable with using a PC and Windows, it’s no more tricky than anything else you use your computer for. That’s the thing that really happened in 1994: although the Internet has been around since the 1960s, in 1994 software that made it friendly and easy to use started to appear.

But that’s history, and I’m not going to bore you with lengthy history lessons, or throw a lot of impressive but unnecessary jargon at you. The aim of this book is twofold – first, to help you connect your computer to the Internet and find your way around it, and second, to point you towards the practical, useful, or just plain fun things that the Internet has to offer.

Practical TCP/IP is the only book you need to ensure that your networks work. With this book you learn by doing as well as reading. Split into 4 Parts, this book has a unique modular approach that facilitates in-depth and easy learning. The detailed appendices make this a desktop book you cannot be without.

Based on years of practical experience this hands-on book explains the principles of networking, and the TCP/IP protocols in depth. Covering both Linux and Windows, Practical TCP/IP is applicable to just about any network.

Skills you will learn

• Tells you how to build a network
• Starts with a simple two-machine network and goes onto a full network connected to the Internet with a firewall and internal routers, and DNS and e-mail servers.
• Explains the software tools you need to diagnose problems and to understand how your network is operating
• Explains why you would want to do things as well as how to do them
• Includes practical troubleshooting and diagnostic techniques that you can apply just about everywhere so you can solve problems in your own network and in systems configured by others
• Assumes that things may go wrong rather than work first time. So error messages are explained and solutions to problems found.
• Ties together the various networking components so that the network is viewed as a whole not just disjointed pieces.

After reading this book you end up with a working network, you understand what is happening at a detailed level, the ability to diagnose and fix problems, and to identify bugs in the software you are using.

This book appeals to both beginners and experienced TCP/IP practitioners.

About the Author

Niall Mansfield graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with an MA in physics and maths. He has been working in a UNIX environment since 1987 and founded the European X window system User Group. In 1992 he founded UIT who specialize in UNIX tools, e-mail systems and Internet security. He is still very involved with training and consultancy, running tailored networking courses, designing and installing Ethernet and wireless networks and providing Internet security and firewall systems.

"Be part of the revolution."
—Leo Laporte, This Week in Tech

Go beyond the basics to mastery of the art and craft of digital photography in this new edition of the landmark book from award-winning photographer and author Mikkel Aaland. Aaland draws upon his thirty years of experience in the field, plus the wisdom of more than two dozen contributing professional photographers, to provide authoritative coverage of the latest technologies and best photographic practices. You'll find a wealth of pro tips, shooting techniques, technical recommendations, and step-by-step examples accompanied by stunning photographs that illustrate the practical aspects as well as the aesthetics of digital photography. Build your skills and get inspired with this striking and practical book.

• Capture high-impact images of people, landscapes, products, and more
• Shoot RAW and get the most quality and flexibility out of your digital camera
• Create stunning black-and-white photographs
• Learn to compensate for the main drawbacks of digital cameras
• Photograph underwater, from the sky, beyond visible light, and at night
• Use JPEG 2000, panorama stitching, and other new editing tools
• Focus in depth on technical topics such as histograms and sensors

Stop the action, blur the scene, convert to B&W all in camera or on your computer.

Shoot better so your images will need less editing.

Tag, sort, store, and find your photos more efficiently.

About the Author

Mikkel Aaland is an award-winning photographer and author of ten books, including Photoshop Elements 4 Solutions from Sybex. His photography has been published in Wired, Newsweek, and several European periodicals, and he is a regular guest on the television show Call for Help, hosted by Leo Laporte. His work has been exhibited in major institutions around the world, including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the former Lenin Museum in Prague.

If you’re a PHP developer, you can build Rails-like applications without learning a new language by following the hands-on tutorials in Professional CodeIgniter. In this book, find an overview of MVC and agile technologies, model and schema for products, helpers and libraries, Ajax and Scriptaculous, and explanations of the creation of applications like content management, blogs, and forums. Follow the step-by-step instructions for building and perfecting each application with CodeIgniter, and you will learn how to avoid everyday problems that other reference manuals don’t address.

Professional Codelgniter®

Welcome to the world of CodeIgniter! CodeIgniter is a powerful and flexible MVC framework for PHP, and it will completely revolutionize the way you build applications. Imagine being able to build complete applications in just a matter of days, being able to respond to client needs with speed and power, and being able to maintain your well-organized code weeks, months, and even years afterward. All of this is now within your grasp thanks to CodeIgniter.

Author and CodeIgniter developer Thomas Myer guides you through building a typical web application with CodeIgniter, introducing important topics from the MVC framework and Agile methodologies along the way. From typical installation and configuration through setup and all phases of a hypothetical project, Myer explains the inner workings of CodeIgniter in a way that will get you up and running quickly. If you're already well-versed in PHP, you'll learn how to take what you already know and apply it to CodeIgniter. In very little time, you'll be using the powerful tools and shortcuts in CodeIgniter to build applications in half the time.

What you will learn from this book

• The basics of models, views, and controllers

• How to take advantage of CodeIgniter's many helpers and libraries

• How to create a working application from inception through launch

• How to apply Agile methodologies to any project

Who this book is for

This book is for developers familiar with PHP and MYSQL who want to become more proficient with CodeIgniter.

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.

The Programmer's Ultimate Security DeskRef is the only complete desk reference covering multiple languages and their inherent security issues. It will serve as the programming encyclopedia for almost every major language in use. While there are many books starting to address the broad subject of security best practices within the software development lifecycle, none has yet to address the overarching technical problems of incorrect function usage. Most books fail to draw the line from covering best practices security principles to actual code implementation. This book bridges that gap and covers the most popular programming languages such as Java, Perl, C++, C#, and Visual Basic.

About the Author

James C. Foster, Fellow, is the Deputy Director of Global Security Solution Development for Computer Sciences Corporation where he is responsible for the vision and development of physical, personnel, and data security solutions. Preceding CSC, Foster was the Director of Research and Development for Foundstone Inc. and was responsible for all aspects of product, consulting, and corporate R&D initiatives. Prior to joining Foundstone, Foster was an Executive Advisor and Research Scientist with Guardent Inc. and an adjunct author at Information Security Magazine, subsequent to working as Security Research Specialist for the Department of Defense. Foster is also a well published author with multiple commercial and educational papers; and has authored, contributed, or edited for major publications to include Snort 2.1 Intrusion Detection (Syngress, ISBN: 1-931836-04-3), Hacking Exposed, Fourth Edition, Anti-Hacker Toolkit, Second Edition, Advanced Intrusion Detection, Hacking the Code: ASP.NET Web Application Security (Syngress, ISBN: 1-932266-65-8), Anti-Spam Toolkit, Google Hacking for Penetration Techniques (Syngress, ISBN: 1-931836-36-1), and Sockets, Shellcode, Porting and Coding (Syngress ISBN: 1-597490-05-9).

Learn to sculpt detailed, lush, organic models with the hottest tool on the 3D market - ZBrush - and this step-by-step guide. Introducing ZBrush is the ideal initiation to this revolutionary software. Starting with the basics, it builds from the ground up, combining straightforward text with practical examples that make it fun to learn ZBrush's core tools and concepts. Professional animator and ZBrush artist Eric Keller walks you through the hands-on tutorials and teaches you the skills you need to create hyper-realistic digital models like a pro. From creating illustrations in 2.5 dimensions to sculpting with digital clay, you'll master ZBrush's powerful tools for creating fantastic images and 3D models for use in animation programs like 3ds Max and Maya. Whether your new to the ZBrush interface or a CG veteran looking for the latest techniques, Introducing ZBrush will help you fulfill your artistic potential by giving you the power to create stunning digital art with a distinctively fine art feel.

Create Hyper-Realistic Digital Models

If you want to take advantage of one of the hottest CGI tools available, Introducing ZBrush is the perfect place to start. Professional Hollywood animator and ZBrush artist Eric Keller dispels any anxieties beginners might have by offering the careful, step-by-step instruction you need to soon feel right at home with this revolutionary software.

Each chapter explains core concepts, then reinforces them with fun, hands-on tutorials that will amaze you with your growing ability to create hyper-detailed, realistic, organic sculptures on your computer. From creating illustrations in 2.5 dimensions to sculpting with digital clay, you'll master ZBrush's powerful tools for creating fantastic images and 3D models for use in animation programs, such as 3ds Max and Maya.

• Understand ZBrush's unique painting and sculpting technology

• Take a tour of the innovative ZBrush interface and tools

• Master 2.5D painting, digital sculpting, and texture painting

• Learn how to set lighting, create materials, and render in ZBrush

• Go through a production pipeline, from modeling to rendering to exporting models, textures, and displacement maps

• Transfer your ZBrush creations into Maya and other 3D applications for use in film, games, and illustration

VALUABLE COMPANION DVD
The DVD includes example files and models to help guide you through each lesson as well as ZBrush Macro scripts and movies to show you the sculpting process used in each chapter. It also includes a trial version of ZBrush 3.1 for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

• Learn ZBrush's Material Capture technology to create surfaces from photographs

• Work with subtools to create creature sculptures from multiple objects

• Use lighting and rendering in ZBrush to create 2.5D compositions

About the Author

Eric Keller has been working professionally as a digital artist and 3D animator since 1998. He is a high-end animator for film, television, and scientific visualization with clients including Disney, ESPN, Warner Brothers, Hewlett-Packard, Sony Imageworks, and ABC, and has created animations for scientific research and visualization at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Harvard Medical School. Eric is the author of Maya Visual Effects: The Innovator's Guide, a contributing author to Mastering Maya 8.5 and Mastering Maya 7 (all from Sybex), and has written articles and tutorials for industry magazines.

Welcome to Introducing Reason 4. Whether you already have experience with digital music creation or are completely new to it, you are probably aware that the possibilities available today for creating music in the digital environment are truly staggering. Over the last decade as computers have gotten faster and available storage space has increased, the many software companies creating digital audio programs have kept pace, upping the ante with new features, instruments, effects, and available options with every new release.

Along with the virtually unlimited opportunities now available for professional musicians and recording engineers, the average home computer has more than enough resources to run many of today’s most powerful digital audio programs, including Reason. These advances have put the ability to build powerful digital audio-based home studios well within the reach of students, hobbyists, professionals, and amateur musicians alike. From the beginning, Propellerhead’s Reason program has represented a new way of working with digital audio and thinking about digital music creation. Their revolutionary idea of presenting the user with an entirely self-contained rack of virtual instruments, effects, and routing devices places all of the tools needed for recording, editing, sequencing, saving and exporting at the user’s disposal in a single interface. And, as you’ll learn in these pages, not only can Reason be used on its own, but the ability to combine Reason with other digital audio programs through the ReWire protocol has made the program an indispensable tool in many studios that use other programs as their primary digital audio workstation.

Today’s digital audio programs continue to grow and expand both in feature sets and complexity. With its unique combination of multiple instrument and effect devices, flexible routing, and MIDI control functionality, Reason in particular offers literally limitless possibilities for creating and sequencing digital audio. Above all, what this book aims to do is to give you the tools and information you need to create your own workflow and to best
harness Reason 4’s resources to make your own original music.

Since the emergence of the World Wide Web less than a decade ago, graphic artists have demanded more and more from their software whilst also requiring fast download times for their finished masterpieces. In the past few years, Macromedia® Flash™ has become the de facto standard Web design tool for creating interactive animated presentations on the Internet.

Flash is now in its sixth incarnation (known as MX) and works by placing sequences of images along a Timeline, in much the same way as traditional cartoon artists produced acetate movies. Flash takes much of the effort out of the creation process by automating many of the tasks that traditional artists have had to do by hand. It also gives you total control over how the elements of the program interact with one another and with the end user.

Deceptively complex pages and animations can be put together in incredibly small files, which download very much faster than traditionally coded HTML pages. Most Web browsers support the display of Flash files, and – in short – no serious Web developer can now afford to be without it.

This second handbook represents the efforts of many individuals at XYPRO, who collectively have over 250 years of experience with the HP NonStop platform. In addition, we’ve been privileged to work with a group of contributors and expert reviewers from the HP NonStop Server user community. Their cooperation and experience added dimension to this publication and we believe the reader will greatly benefit from their contributions.

As a vendor of third party security software for the HP NonStop server platform, we were very careful to ensure that this handbook was useful for security administrators, system resource personnel, auditors and the general HP NonStop server community whether or not they chose to use our suite of software tools.

The lack of reference material for the Guardian Operating system prompted us to author our previous book in the hopes that it would facilitate securing the HP NonStop server. HP NonStop Server Security, A Practical Handbook was such a success that we received many requests to tackle more subject matter in a second book. We at XYPRO believe in this platform and have dedicated over 23 years to developing software to take advantage of its unmatched functionality, reliability and scalability. So clearly we also felt a second volume was well worth the effort.

Governance, risk, and compliance—these three big letters can add up to one giant headache. But GRC doesn't have to be a boil on your corporate behind. SAP GRC For Dummies untangles the web of regulations that confronts your company and introduces you to software solutions the not only keep you in compliance, but also make your whole enterprise stronger.

This completely practical guide starts with a big-picture look and GRC and explains how it can help your organization grow. You'll find out why these regulations were enacted; what you can do to ensure compliance; and how compliance can help you prevent fraud, bolster your corporate image, and envision and execute the best possible corporate strategy. This all-business handbook will help you:

• Understand the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley
• Control access effectively
• Color your company a greener shade of green
• Source or sell goods internationally
• Keep your employees safe and healthy
• Ensure that data is kept secret and private
• Manage information flow in all directions
• Enhance your public image through sustainability reporting
• Use GRC as the basis for a powerful new corporate strategy

Complete with enlightening lists of best practices for successful GRC implementation and conducting global trade, this book also puts you in touch with thought leadership Web sights where you can deepen your understanding of GRC-based business strategies. You can't avoid dealing with GRC, but you can make the most of it with a little help from SAP GRC For Dummies.

About the Author

Denise Vu Broady: Denise is SAP’s VP of Strategic Applications. She runs the SAP CFO Center of Excellence, a cross-solution team responsible for enabling customers to use SAP technology and products to transform the Office of the CFO. She has business development responsibility for the entire CFO portfolio of solutions, including Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC); Enterprise Performance Management (EPM); and Spend Optimization. Denise has over 11 years of SAP-related experience. At SAP she has specialized in bringing new products to market; Denise played a central role in the launch of xApps, NetWeaver, Payroll Change Management, GRC and EPM. She came to SAP via the acquisition of TopTier where she was Product Manager. Earlier in her career, Denise gained hands-on SAP experience as a consultant on multiple R/2 and R/3 technical and functional projects. Denise has a BS in Management Science and Marketing from Virginia Tech and resides in New York City.

Holly A. Roland: Holly is the vice president of marketing for SAP’s Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) business unit. In this role, she is responsible for product strategy and marketing for SAP’s GRC products. Holly created the industry-leading executive advisory board for GRC, composed of customers, partners, and SAP executives, which facilitates collaboration among business executives and industry leaders to identify common GRC challenges, develop GRC best practices, and conceive of supporting technology solutions. Holly was instrumental in the integration of Virsa Systems and the successful design and execution of SAP’s GRC product launch in 2006. She publishes articles and serves as an expert speaker for international events and forums on GRC topics. Holly has more than 15 years of experience in financial accounting and reporting, regulatory compliance, business analytics, and enterprise software marketing and development. Prior to joining SAP, she led product strategy, marketing, and product management operations at Virsa Systems, Oracle Corporation, Hyperion Solutions, and Movaris. Holly also served as a public accountant for PriceWaterhouseCoopers where she audited large public companies and provided business consulting. Holly graduated cum laude from Santa Clara University with a BS in Commerce. She is based in SAP Labs in Palo Alto, California.

Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator, and MCSD developer who has a passion for emerging technologies. He is a regular writer for developer journals such as Inside Visual Basic, ASPToday, and Hardcore Visual Studio .NET, and he's the author of several books about programming with .NET, including User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls, The Book of VB .NET, and .NET Distributed Applications. In a dimly remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics. Send e-mail to him with praise, condemnation, and everything in between, to p2p@prosetech.com. --sources

The most up-to-date and comprehensive introductory ASP.NET book you'll find on any shelf, Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in VB 2008 guides you through Microsoft's latest technology for building dynamic web sites. This book will enable you to build dynamic web pages on the fly, and it assumes only the most basic knowledge of VB 2008. The book provides exhaustive coverage of ASP.NET, guiding you from your first steps right up to the most advanced techniques, such as querying databases from within a web page and tuning your site for optimal performance. Within these pages, you'll find tips for "best practices" and comprehensive discussions of key database and XML principles you need to know in order to be effective with ASP.NET. The book also emphasizes the invaluable coding techniques of object orientation and code behind, which will start you off on the track to building real-world web sites right from the beginningrather than just faking it with simplified coding practices. By the time you've finished the book, you will have mastered the core techniques and have all the knowledge you need to begin work as a professional ASP.NET developer.

About the Author

Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator, and MCSD developer who has a passion for emerging technologies. He is a regular writer for developer journals such as Inside Visual Basic, ASPToday, and Hardcore Visual Studio .NET, and he's the author of several books about programming with .NET, including User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls, The Book of VB .NET, and .NET Distributed Applications. In a dimly remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics. Send e-mail to him with praise, condemnation.

IBM’s DB2 Express Edition is one of the most capable of the free database platforms available in today’s marketplace. In Beginning DB2, author Grant Allen gets you started using DB2 Express Edition for web sites, desktop applications, and more. The author covers the basics of DB2 for developers and database administrators, shows you how to manage data in both XML and relational form, and includes numerous code examples so that you are never in doubt as to how things work. In this book, you’ll find

• A friendly introduction to DB2 Express Edition, an industrial–strength, relational database from IBM
• Dozens of examples so that you are never in doubt as to how things work
• Coverage of important language interfaces, such as from PHP, Ruby, C#, Python, and more
• Aimed at developers who want a robust database to back their applications

What you’ll learn

Install and manage DB2 Express Edition on Linux and Windows.

Manage IML data seamlessly using IBM’s pureXML storage engine.

Connect DB2 databases to web and desktop applications via languages such as PHP, Ruby, C#, Python, and more.

Protect your data with a sound backup and restore strategy.

Design and manage database schemas and security within the database.

Know when and why to upgrade to more powerful editions of DB2.

Who is this book for?

Application developers, including web application developers, looking for a robust, zero–cost database to back their applications. Database administrators looking to get up to speed quickly with DB2.

About the Apress Beginning Series

The Beginning series from Apress is the right choice to get the information you need to land that crucial entry–level job. These books will teach you a standard and important technology from the ground up because they are explicitly designed to take you from “novice to professional.” You’ll start your journey by seeing what you need to know—but without needless theory and filler. You’ll build your skill set by learning how to put together real–world projects step by step. So whether your goal is your next career challenge or a new learning opportunity, the Beginning series from Apress will take you there—it is your trusted guide through unfamiliar territory!

About the Author

Grant Allen has worked in the IT field for nearly 20 years, specializing in relational database management systems from a variety of vendors. For the past decade, he has worked in the Asia–Pacific region and Europe as a principal database consultant and enterprise architect for several organizations, and he now works in the database field for Google. Grant is a certified DB2 database administrator for DB2 under Linux, Unix, and Windows, and is a past presenter at the International DB2 Users Group conferences.

This book is a thoroughly practical way to explore the 8051 and discover C programming through project work. Through graded projects, Dogan Ibrahim introduces the reader to the fundamentals of microelectronics, the 8051 family, programming in C, and the use of a C compiler. The specific device used for examples is the AT89C2051 - a small, economical chip with re-writable memory, readily available from the major component suppliers.

A working knowledge of microcontrollers, and how to program them, is essential for all students of electronics. In this rapidly expanding field many students and professionals at all levels need to get up to speed with practical microcontroller applications. Their rapid fall in price has made microcontrollers the most exciting and accessible new development in electronics for years - rendering them equally popular with engineers, electronics hobbyists and teachers looking for a fresh range of projects.

Microcontroller Projects in C for the 8051 is an ideal resource for self-study as well as providing an interesting, enjoyable and easily mastered alternative to more theoretical textbooks.

Dogan Ibrahim has been Associate Professor and Head of Department at the Near East University, Cyprus, lecturer at South Bank University, London, Principal Research Engineer at GEC Hirst Research Centre, and is now a hardware and software systems consultant to London's Traffic Control Systems Unit.

Practical projects that enable students and practitioners to get up and running straight away with 8051 microcontrollers
A hands-on introduction to practical C programming
A wealth of project ideas for students and enthusiasts

(Newnes) Covers programming the 8051 family of microcontrollers using the C language. Readers are introduced to the fundamentals of microelectronics, the 8051 family, programming in C, and the use of a C compiler. Light, sound, temperature, and RS232 serial communication projects are included. Softcover.

About the Author

Dogan Ibrahim works for the Traffic Control Systems Unit in London, UK. He was formerly a lecturer at South Bank University and Head of Department at Near East University, Cyprus in the UK.

The Canon Digital Rebel XTi/400D is an ideal camera for first-time digital SLR users. Unfortunately if you don't know photography lingo you might find yourself never veering from your camera's default settings and into all the cool features that help you take outstanding photos. This book takes care of that problem. Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D For Dummies comes to the aid of new and inexperienced XTi/400D users by walking them through all the features of their camera. The book not only explains that camera's controls, but also demonstrates how each feature contributes to creating great photos. Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photos, this guide helps you get up-to-speed on the XTi/400D and in control of this popular camera.

Make friends with your Rebel XTi/400D and enjoy all its features

Take creative control by adjusting exposure, color, and focus

It's the digital SLR you've dreamed of, and now it's yours. Make the most of it with this handy guide! Understand camera lingo, get great results in automatic and manual modes, and preserve, protect, and print your pictures. This book shows you how to snap super shots every time.

Discover how to:

• Choose the right camera settings

• Make sense of f-stops, shutter speed, and ISO

• Shoot beautiful portraits and travel photos

• Capture action and nature scenes

• Download and organize your picture files

About the Author

Julie Adair King is the author of many books about digital photography and imaging, including the best-selling Digital Photography For Dummies. Her most recent titles include Digital Photography Before & After Makeovers, Digital Photo Projects For Dummies, Julie King’s Everyday Photoshop For Photographers, Julie King’s Everyday Photoshop Elements, and Shoot Like a Pro!: Digital Photography Techniques. When not writing, King teaches digital photography at such locations as the Palm Beach Photographic Centre. A graduate of Purdue University, she resides in Indianapolis, Indiana.

A report is only useful if those who receive it understand what it means. Knowing how to use Crystal Reports gives you the edge in producing reports from your database that really are crystal clear.

Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies is a quick and easy guide to get you going with the latest version of this bestselling report-writing software. In fact, it’s so popular that previous editions have made it a bestseller too. Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies gives you just what you should know to produce the reports you’ll need most often, including how to:

• Pull specific information from your database, sort and group it, and find the details you need
• Use dynamic or cascading prompts
• Troubleshoot and print reports and save time with templates
• View reports on your LAN
• Write formulas to retrieve specific information
• Create and update OLAP reports
• Format reports, control page breaks, and even add graphics or Flash files
• Enhance your reports with charts and maps
• Use Crystal Reports in the enterprise

There’s also a companion Web site with sample reports from the book and links to sites with more related information. With Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies by your side, you’ll soon be able to create reports from simple to spectacular, whenever the need arises.

About the Author

Allen G. Taylor teaches database development as well as electrical engineering, and also operates a Web development company. He is a national database management speaker and consultant.

This book has been written in precise and technical language with the intention of eliminating marketing hype and other inappropriate descriptions. (Indeed the book is no light read as the topics covered are taken most seriously by myself.) The terminology used is derived from standard use (i.e. internationally approved through the standardization process), and new terms are defined to avoid any confusion. However, occasionally, even among the creators of the technology, the terminology is not consistent so I have chosen those terms which seem most appropriate for consistency throughout the text. Although I personally do not always feel comfortable with the terms that have been endorsed, I do believe that the developers always try to advance the most appropriate terminology and so should not be castigated unduly afterwards.

Routing and Switching: Time of Convergence? provides a global and complex overview of the issues surrounding internetworking, together with sufficient detail to satisfy the internet professional as well as provide a proper understanding of the underlying principles. The primary aim of the text is to show what is behind the evolution in network interconnection, and give some clue as to where industry developments and standardization efforts are heading: to gain performance by avoiding unnecessary processing in the internetworking device, whether router or switch.

To make the book easier to use I have broken the text into sections of reasonable length and included a wealth of illustrations and tables to complement the individual topics. More importantly, I have included highlighted Snapshots and Hints to summarize the important concepts in a nutshell to aid comprehension, while the Quick Tips will help the reader to get to the bottom of ideas that may not be quite so obvious. Also included throughout are highlighted references to the appropriate standards and RFCs — Standards and RFC Watches — with additional details of the organizations from which they originate. The chapters or major sections also conclude with a complete list of all standards and RFCs mentioned throughout the text.

A word of caution should be added here. Due to the speed of developments in the areas on which this book concentrates it has not been possible to avoid mentioning enhancements which are ‘only’ at the proposal stage (usually in the form of Internet Drafts). New drafts appear every day and a great many of them will — directly or partially — relate to the topics of interest here. I have tried to concentrate on those proposals which have already gathered significant attention and seem viable for future development. However, readers should consider sections where ‘work in progress’ is mentioned with care and check how far any proposals have been taken by the time the book is read. For similar reasons I have not included the links to or names of such drafts as they may well be renamed, their current versions become obsolete, or their status may have changed by the time the section is read.

The most effective web sites are those that can attract and keep customers by being user-friendly and easy to navigate -- using a web site is a discretionary activity, where the user is king and can easily move elsewhere if presented with ambiguities or confusing options. Web sites MUST be designed with the user as the primary concern if they are to succeed.

User Centred Web Design is an original and practical guide to designing or transforming successful interactive web sites, focussing on designing for the end-user. In a concise, readable text it presents an overview of user-centred interactive website project management and design, providing practical advice and proven methodology, as well as ideas and tips for ensuring that the final design meets the needs of both client and end-user.

This book questions the usefulness and purpose behind commonly-used methods and thinking, and will encourage you to develop more creative and user-centred solutions and to embrace more effective management of web design projects.

User Centred Web Design:

* Offers clear, concise, practical wisdom on the design process
* Covers new perspectives and techniques for designing successful web sites
* Contains a wealth of tips, tricks, and techniques for creative design
* Is your personal web design workshop!

About the Author

John Cato has 27 years experience designing software and interactive systems for clients such as Hewlett-Packard, Anderson Consulting, Microsoft, Rio Tinto plc, Westinghouse Systems, and Datastream International, specialising in usability engineering, HCI, and project management mentoring. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and runs a number of workshops and focussed training courses, as well as providing user-centred design consultancy and carrying out usability evaluations for a wide range of clients.

This is a book about Photoshop 7. Photoshop is Adobe’s venerable imageediting software, the darling of creative professionals everywhere. With Photoshop, you can prepare artwork for print and the Web, create and edit pixel-based graphics, repair damaged photographs, apply special effects, and convert graphics files from one format to another. In fact, there is very little that you can’t do in Photoshop.

This book explores the essential features of Photoshop 7. Other guides may catalogue every button, switch and menu command, and still others maybe guile you with vivid colour images, but this book doesn’t need the excess clutter. It goes right to the heart of the matter. It assumes nothing, providingtheory and practice in good measure towards a thorough understanding of Photoshop’s capabilities. You can go into this guide a graphics novice and come out a competent, capable Photoshop user.

I can say these things about the book because I’m not the original author. My task was to update the existing material to bring it in line with the latest Photoshop release. If you’re familiar with the previous book, you’ll notice a number of changes just by thumbing through this new edition. I tried to preserve the spirit of the earlier edition as completely as possible, though, so I hope that reading this book is like reacquainting oneself with an old friend.

Easily accessible and fun overview of everything the Internet has to offerThe new edition weeds out some coverage of lesser used Internet features (such as Archie and Gopher) replacing them with hot up-to-date coverage of live audio, conferencing, and push mediaThe Complete Idiot's Guide to the Internet, 4th Edition is an updated version of one of Que's best-selling Complete Idiot's GuidesSpecial Lycos Yellow Pages section highlights the best of the most popular Lycos Web sitesNew users are especially concerned about security and online transactions according to recent surveys. This book will cut through the myths and explain the tools and concepts surrounding these for this audience - Provides an easily accessible and fun overview of everything the Internet has to offer

- Weeds out some coverage of lesser-used Internet features (such as Archie and Gopher) replacing them with hot up-to-date coverage of live audio, conferencing, and push media

- Includes a special Lycos Yellow Pages section, which highlights the best of the most popular Lycos Web sites

You're nobody's fool. You figure the Internet is more than a place for people who gamble with their credit cards, online chatterers, and celebrity adoration pages, but you've never really explored it. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Internet, Sixth Edition, makes sense of the Web World. From an Internet overview, through email and browsers, and newsgroups and more, this book untangles it all, and makes the most of your Internet navigation. Written in a language that speaks to you, makes you laugh, and heck, might even make you money, this best-seller has you up and surfing successfully in no time.

About the Author

Peter Kent is the author of all six of the bestselling The Complete Idiot's Guide® to the Internet books. He has been training computer users and documenting software for the past 18 years. He has also written articles that have appeared in Internet World, Windows Magazine and Computer World, and writes the syndicated column Geek News. Peter is the founder of BizBlast.com, a major e-business service provider.