Reading list
I decided to put online the list of books I read. The book is added on the list the day I finish it (or I mean with the date I finish it). I wish sometime I had more time to read. Unless mentionned otherwise, I read them on a dead-tree edition, not that it matters much.
December 2022
- Commodore: A Company on the Edge, (Commodore #2) Brian Bagnall
- Computer History - Commodore starting the their computer business, from the PET, the 6502, to the departure of Jack Tramiel. Some event cross path with The Home Computer Wars: An Insider's Account of Commodore and Jack Tramiel
September 2022
- Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System, Nick Montfort, Ian Bogost
- Computer History - Essays on the Atari VCS and the technical constraints it brought on the process of writing classic games.
- 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, Nick Montfort, Ian Bogost and al.
- Computer History - Essays on the historical significance in personal computer of a single line of BASIC code.
August 2022
- The Relentless Moon, (Lady Astronaut Universe #3), Mary Robinette Kowal
- Science-Fiction - In parallel to The Fated Sky, things happen on the Moon base.
- The Fated Sky, (Lady Astronaut Universe #2), Mary Robinette Kowal
- Science-Fiction - Following the Calculting Stars, with the moon settlement up and running it's is now time to go to Mars.
July 2022
- The Calculating Stars, (Lady Astronaut Universe #1), Mary Robinette Kowal
- Science-Fiction - In an alternate history, a huge meteorite inhilate the East coast of the US in 1952, and scientists convince the world that outer space is the only long term salvation for humanity as climate change accelerates.
- The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - Who is the Kaiju Preservation Society, and what to do they do?
June 2022
- LATEX: A Document Preparation System: User's Guide and Reference Manual, Leslie Lamport
- Computing - LaTeX by LaTeX creator.
May 2022
- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, Dave Grohl
- Autobiography - Dave Grohl story in his own words.
April 2022
- Caliban's War (The Expanse #2), James SA Corey
- Science-Fiction - After the Eros incident, Mars and the UN are on the brink of war.
February 2022
- Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons, Jon Peterson
- History of RPGs - What happened to TSR, the company created for Dungeons & Dragons?
December 2021
- Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, David C. Robertson, Bill Breen
- Non-fiction - The story of LEGO turn around in the industry from the business point of view.
November 2021
- The Home Computer Wars: An Insider's Account of Commodore and Jack Tramiel, Michael Tomczyk
- Computer History - autobiographic account of Commorode through the lens of Michael Tomczyk
- Kill It with Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems (and Future Proof Modern Ones), Marianne Bellotti
- Computing - How to deal with legacy computer system, and how to build for the future.
- Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development, 2d Ed., Jim Blandy, Jason Orendorff, Leonora F Tindall
- Programming - 2nd Edition of the reference book on Rust
July 2021
- Metatropolis, John Scalzi (Editor)
- Science-Fiction - Short story collection on the future of cities
June 2021
- The Computers that made Britain, Tim Danton
- Computer history - Britain in the 80's had its own computers. Some spread through Europe, some didn't but what's left is very present today.
November 2020
- The Android's Dream, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - Some interspecies diplomatic relations relies on a lost thing that must be found. Of course not all parties have the same motive.
May 2020
- The Last Emperox (The Interdependency #3), John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - The conclusion to The Interdependency.
February 2020
- The Birth of Loud, Ian S. Port
- Non-Fiction - The story of the electric guitar.
November 2018
- Ringworld, Larry Niven
- Science-Fiction - Classic science-fiction about the exploration of a humungus artificial ring hosting a inhabitable world. Humanity has already had interstellar conflict and master faster than light travel. So who are these people.
- The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2), John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - The sequel to The Collapsing Empire.
July 2018
- Machine Learning for Developers, Bonnin Rodolfo
- Computing
March 2018
- The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1), John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - Humanity is spread in an interstellar empire where each world is connected by "the flow" which allow covering the vast distances faster than light. But the flow isn't eternal.
- Functional JavaScript, Michael Fogus
- Programming - Functional programming in JavaScript, using underscore.js.
August 2017
- A clash of Kings, George R. R. Martin
- Fantasy - Second opus of the "A song of Fire and Ice" series that makes up for the HBO TV Series "Game of Thrones".
July 2017
- Lock In (Lock In #1), John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - Not long ago a virus spread, and 1% of the victims became locked into their bodie, unable to move. They can use technology to have a host, if the can afford it. Crime still happen, and this complicate investigations.
- Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - A modernized take on H Beam Piper "Little Fuzzy".
June 2017
- Redshirts, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - A nod to Star Trek where it seems that expendable crew always wear red shirts. But will our crew members discover the truth behind this?
March 2017
- Drive, James S.A. Corey
- Science-Fiction - A short story in The Expanse universe telling the story of the Epstein drive invention.
January 2017
- Justice Calling, Annie Bellet
- Fantasy - Urban fantasy.
November 2016
- surveillance://, Tristan Nitot
- Information Technology - A book about Internet, tech and how surverillance is happening, whether it is Government or private company, whether it is for "law & order" or for mercantile purpose. (in French)
August 2016
- Built-ins, Robert J. Settich
- Woodworking - Practical book on making built-ins.
- Think Python, Allen B, Downey
- Programming - A decent introduction to Python programming with practical examples.
- Trim Carpentry and Built-Ins, Clayton DeKorne
- Woodworking - Practical book on make built-ins and trims.
- Illustrated Cabinetmaking: How to Design and Construct Furniture That Works, Bill Hylton
- Woodworking - Expose the various kind of joinery and show many examples of furniture and how they are pieced together. A great overview.
- The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu
- Science-Fiction - Hugo Award 2016 - A story of first contact with an alien civilization.
June 2016
- 40 Years of Gen Con, Robin D Law
- History of RPG - The history of GenCon, the tabletop gaming event that started as a few friends playing wargames, then later D&D, in Lake Geneva, WI.
May 2016
- Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1), James SA Corey
- Science-Fiction - The Expanse, vol 1. A space opera in a not too distant future where humanity as scatered through the solar system. Between the crew of the Canterbury in a ice hauler and a detective looking for a lost young woman on Ceres, mystery and war unravel.
February 2016
- Designers & Dragons: the 2000s, Shannon Applecline
- History of RPGs - Last volume with the history of RPG companies founded in the 2000s, when the d20 explosions and burst. Includes companies like Paizo and trends like the rise of the indies.
January 2016
- Designers & Dragons: the 90s, Shannon Applecline
- History of RPGs - The history of RPG companies founded in the 90s, during the CCG crisis. This includes WotC and White Wolf.
- Developing with PDF: Dive Into the Portable Document Format, Leonard Rosenthol
- Computing - A good introduction to understanding PDF as a file format.
- Strangers From Earth, Poul Anderson
- Science-Fiction - A bunch of short stories from the golden age of Sci-Fi
- Les Protecteurs - Tome 2 - La planète de la discorde, Mario Fecteau
- Science-Fiction - The second part: Earth is now part of the league of "Protectors" and humans taking an active part to it. But how will their influence change things?
December 2015
- Rust Essentials, Ivo Balbaert
- Computer Science, Language - Introductory book on the Rust language.
- Agent to the Stars, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - John Scalzi first novel: a story of first contact with Earth. A fun comedy.
- Les Protecteurs - Tome 1 - Des nouvelles de l'univers, Mario Fecteau
- Science-Fiction - The first part of a story of the encounter of Earth by a civilization who aim at protecting other civilizations from the repeating mistakes that lead to self-destruction. Part 1 is the story of these "Protectors" encounter with Earth.
- A game of thrones, George R. R. Martin
- Fantasy - First book of "A Song of Fire and Ice" series that mostly match the first season of the TV show GoT.
July 2015
- Effective Modern C++, Scott Meyers
- Computers - The third volume of the Effective C++ series, this time dedicated to C++11 and C++14, what the new language features brings you.
June 2015
- The End of All Things, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - The latest volume in the Old Man's War saga. Not yet released in Dead Tree, this is the 4 episodes version for those who were eager - like me. A direct continuation of The Human Division. Available without DRM.
March 2015
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J. K. Rowling
- Fantasy - Volume 6 of Harry Potter. Long overdue in my to read pile.
- Designers & Dragons: the 80s, Shannon Applecline
- History of RPGs - The second in a series of 4 books about the history of roleplaying games, this one covering the 80s. Very informative, but very dry cut.
February 2015
- Of Dice and Men, David M Ewalt
- History of RPGs - Here the author walk us through the history of Dungeon & Dragons with a view on the players, what they look for and how the whole thing is fun. Himself a player, he mixes storis from the last campaign he has been playing giving us a taste good enough to want to play it.
- Designers & Dragons: the 70s, Shannon Applecline
- History of RPGs - The first in a series of 4 books about the history of roleplaying games, this one covering the 70s. Very informative, but very dry cut.
December 2014
- The Sagan Diary, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - From the Old Man's War series, a limited print of a short story relating Jane Sagan story from the diaries that were in her BrainPal.
- The Human Division, John Scalzi
- Science-Fiction - Fifth book in the Old Man's War series. A collection of serialized short stories that form a complete long form story arc. Like a TV series. Sadly not long enough.
September 2014
- Lexicon, Max Barry
- Science-Fiction - Words are a dangerous weapon.
April 2014
- The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross
- Science-Fiction - Chtulhu meet James Bond.
December 2013
- The Cult of Lego, John Baichtal, Joe Meno
- - A comprehensive guide to understanding Lego and why adult play with this legendary and never matched construction toy. (Read on Safari Online - where all pages are pixaleted)
November 2013
- Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
- Biography - The infamous official biography of Steve Jobs. Because it is official, it is hard to say whether it is accurate or just meant to not depict Steve Jobs in a too bad light. Not badly written though, ie it is not boring if you have interest about it.
- C++ Concurrency in Action: Practical Multithreading, Anthony Williams
- Computer science - a book about multithreading in C++. It cover the C++ library in C++11 and all the facilities for safe concurrent programming. (Read on Safari Online)
October 2013
- Dark Places, Jon Evans
- Fiction, thriller - The only thing that prevented me from reading this book in one shot was me being tired on the plane. The story of a hiker, software developer turned investigator after the gruesome discovery that had similarities with his past. A character that resonate with people as being a regular person with a regular job.
May 2013
- In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters, Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman
- Computing and business - The story of mistakes computer hardware and software companies made, that were fatal to some, damaging to other. The author show sometime a level of dislike on certain companies and technologies that lead to taking some of the "facts" with a grain of salt. (Read on Safari Online)
April 2013
- Future Wars, edited by Martin Greenberg
- Science-Fiction, short stories - A collection of original short stories about war in the future.
- Version Control with Git: Powerful tools and techniques for collaborative software development, Jon Loeliger and Matthew McCullough
- Computing - I learned a lot about git innards. If you use git you should be reading this book. (Read on Safari Online)
March 2013
- Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy
- Computer History - A classic Steven Levy about hackers. Talks about MIT, Apple, early game developers, early days of micro computing. (Read on Safari Online)
December 2012
- Instant: The Story of Polaroid, Christopher Bonanos.
- Photograpy History - The complete story of Polaroid, from its inception to its fall. Very insightful view of a success story, its founder and how things changed afterwards.
- A Nation Worth Ranting About, Rick Mercer.
- Political satire - Rick Mercer famous rants from the Mercer Report.
- Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large, William Shatner.
- Auto biography - Bill Shatner talks about himself. Funny.
November 2010
- 13th - Encyclopedia Shatnerica: An A to Z Guide to the Man and His Universe, Robert Schnakenberg.
- Biography - An encyclopedic biography of William Shatner, the actor. A good source of trivia if you are a fan of the man.
July 2010
- 24th - Zoe's Tale, John Scalzi.
- Science-Fiction - Sequel of The Last Colony. Actually the same story from the point of view of a different character. I don't think it is as good.
May 2010
- 15th - Autour de la lune, Jules Verne.
- Science-Fiction - Sequel of De la Terre à la Lune. The tales of the journey to the moon inside the wagon-canonball... and its return to Earth.
- 3rd - De la terre à la lune, Jules Verne.
- Science-Fiction - 19th century classic by Jules Verne. Sending a canonball to the moon, this does not sound much more dangerous than the rocket the US astronauts rode a century later. That's what the gun-club did. And it took a French to decide to have it be manned.
April 2010
- 15th - The Cult of iPod, Leander Kahney. No Starch Press
- Computers - The story of what is happening in the iPod-mania, a society phenomenon based around the music player. Much like the parent computer, the Mac, iPod generate a lot of fanboyism, but just at a larger scale.
- 5th - Farenheit 451, Ray Bradburry. Del Rey
- Science-Fiction - A classic of science-fiction. In a future world, the governments have outlawed books and people just watch TV. The firemen are not here to extinguish fires because all the houses are fireproof, they are here to burn books, those forbidden things that the government cannot control otherwise.
March 2010
- 26th - C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices, Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu. Addison-Wesley
- Programming - Definitely must read for any C++ programmer. Covers lot of dos and don't.
December 2009
- 14th - The Last Colony, John Scalzi. Tor
- Science-Fiction - The sequel of Ghost Brigades. Another face of the Colonial Union, in continuity with the two earlier installments. It is supposed to be the end of the trilogy. We'll see how Zoe's Tale fits into it as it seems to be the 4th installement.
September 2009
- 18th - Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi. Tor
- Science-Fiction - The sequel of
Old
Man's War. The CDF, new characters, interstellar wars, etc. Everything to become a
classic in Sci-Fi.
I really like the universe Scalzi has crafted, a universe where humanity is not alone but still humanity is arrogant. Not that they are the only one being so. - 6th - The Search, John Battelle.
- Business - A book about Google and how it transformed search. Give a better light
on the begining of Google and how they came to do what they do.
There is probably even more today to talk about. That would lead to a second part. We could call it "Internet Merchants", or "The company who sold the Internet".
July 2009
- 26th - Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon.
- Science-Fiction - I got referred to this book by reading about Dyson spheres, following the watching of Star Trek: TNG episode Relics. A 1930s science fiction novel about intergalactic voyage.
- 23rd - Intellectual Property and Open Source, Van Lindberg. O'Reilly
- Computer Science - Probably a book that every FLOSS developer should read and understand. It demystify the most of the legal problems surrounding Free Software licensing in a way that software hackers can understand.
- 22nd - Dune, Frank Herbert. Ace
- Science-Fiction - No need to present that classic of science fiction. Thousands of years in the future, the Guild of Navigators have a monopoly on space travel and relies on the spice melange to perform their task. Said spice melange come from a single planet in the universe: Dune.
October 2008
- 31st - The boy who would live forever, Frederik Pohl. Tor
- Science-Fiction - The last installment of the Gateway series.
September 2008
- 19th - Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card. Tor
- Science-Fiction - A great classic about intergalactic war.
August 2008
- 23rd - Old Man's War, John Scalzi. Tor
- Science-Fiction - If you like Starship troopers and The forever war then you'll like this one. A new variation of the theme of intergalactic war with a new theme: old people get refitted for a war with new technologies.
July 2008
- 13th - How to win friends & influence people, Dale Carnegie. Pocket Books.
- Psychology - At first sight the title looks like one of these "the secret of my fortune"-type book, but it is not. It is actually more and insightful teaching of how human relationship works and how to manipulate people to have them be on your side. It is not evil, it is just exploiting the human nature properly. Almost a sales 101 course. This book has actually become a reference.
April 2008
- 28th - The Cult of Mac, Leander Kahney. No Starch Press
- Computers - Trying to understand why Apple customer are so loyal despite being screwed so often is beyond any understanding. This book gives a lot of example of what they do, without really explaining why. It is probably hard to explain why maintaining a machine beyond economical repair to keep it current or why some worship their Mac like a deity. I guess, as a former Mac zealot, I'm still beyond it probably more by pragmatism. It should be noted that I read the online PDF that No Starch Press posted recently. They may be thanked for it.
February 2008
- 11th - Rick Mercer Report: The Book, Rick Mercer. Doubleday Canada
- Politics, Humour - A collection of Rick Mercer's rants from his political satire television show on CBC. If you don't understand Canadian politics, after reading this book, you might. Despite Mercer being clearly on the Liberals side, the satire hit almost everybody, most of the time the one in power. I think this book would double as "Canadian Politics for dummies".
- 7th - Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3, Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe. Peachpit Press
- Digital Photography Software - This book talks about the de-facto software used for camera RAW processing. Of course this is non-Free software, but the content is interesting as it give a very detailed view of what the users seems to expects, including by mentionning limitations and shortcomings. A good way to specify what has to be done in a Free Software implementation.
October 2007
- 25th - Photoshop Lightroom Adventure, Mikkel Aaland. O'Reilly Media
- Digital Photography Software - First there are some nice pictures of Iceland, but that's not why I read this book. Lightroom is a proprietary software designed for photographer. Reading this book helps me better understand all the subtelties of the software in order to better understand what photographers like in it. Ultimately it will help me to design a Free Software for similar use.
September 2007
- 23rd - Banana Republicans, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. Tarcher / Penguin
- Politics - Everything you wanted to know about Republicans but were afraid to ask.
- 20th - Big Planet, Jack Vance. Gollancz
- Science-Fiction - A mission on a big planet were people exhiled themselves from Earth. It all start with the crash of the space ship due to a sabotage.
- 17th - L.G.M. 2/4, Roland C. Wagner. Onyx
- Science-Fiction - In French, part 2 of 4. An alternate reality where Martian live on Mars and where the Soviet Union still exists. Lot of references to classic science-fiction. Now I need to find the last 2 parts... or just buy the newer edition.
- 13th - L.G.M. 1/4, Roland C. Wagner. Onyx
- Science-Fiction - In French, part 1 of 4
- 11th - Le Loup de Deb, Nicolas Jarry. Mnemos
- Fantasy - In French
July 2007
- 22nd - Triplanetary, E.E. Smith. Gutenberg Project
- Science Fiction - Classic pulp Sci-Fi from E.E. Smith republished by the gutenberg project as an e-book.
- 14th - Nine Tomorrows, Isaac Asimov. Fawcett Crest
- Science Fiction - Short stories from Isaac Asimov. I had read it in French previously. Seems to be out of print as well. Isaac Asimov remains one of my first Sci-Fi author and actually the one that made me pickup on reading.
- 13th - Cross Bones, Kathy Reichs. Scribners
- Fiction - Temperance Brenan is a Forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaire et de Medicine Legale in Montreal, QC. This the series of books that inspired the TV show "Bones" (2005)
June 2007
- 27th - Trojan Odyssey, Clive Cussler. Putnam
- Fiction / Adventure - Dirk Pitt is here to save the world once again. Still entertaining, but still very predictible.
May 2007
- 6th - Next of Kin, Eric Frank Russell. Gollancz
- Science-Fiction - I think I already read that novel a long time ago, in French, as an already out of print edition; this one apparently is too, that's why I just paid a couple of bucks. "The great escape" revisited with talent in a pan-galactic war. Leeming is a scout in the earth spatial navy that have serious issues with the military discipline. He is sent into an reconnaissance mission into enemy territory...
April 2007
- 16th - Worlds, Joe Haldeman. Gollancz
- Science-Fiction - The Worlds are these asteroids in the solar system that earth colonized in the 21st century, and that provide unvaluable resources like energy to Earth. O'Hara is selected to go to Earth for university. The world will change... Written in 1955, this novel talks about energy crisis and revolution, and in my opinion does spots it pretty well. I already liked The Forever War, that I unfortunately own in French.
- 15th - Eleanor Rigby, Douglas Coupland. Random House Canada
- Fiction - Liz Dunn life change the day she got a call from the RCMP telling her that someone is in the hospital with her name as an emergency contact. From the author of Microserfs
- 11th - Beyond the C++ Standard Library, an introduction to Boost, Björn Karlsson. Addison Wesley
- Programming - If you intend to use Boost, read this book. The chapter about Boost.Lambda, Boost.Bind and Boost.Function is worth it. Other topic covered are Boost.Signals, Boost.Any, Boost.Tuple, Boost.Variant, Boost.Regex, Boost.Operators, Boost.Utility, Boost.Conversion and Boost.Smart_ptr. You need to know C++ to understand this book, but fortunately I find if very easy to read, even for the very hairy topics. Off course this cover just a fraction of Boost.
March 2007
- 30th - Expert C Programming, Deep C Secrets, Peter Ven Der Linden. Prentice Hall
- Programming. This rather old book (written in 1994) talks about problems even advanced C programmers might run into. It is interesting to learn about C design flaws, and the chapter about C++ is even more critical. Note that in 2007 this book really show its age but there are still several interesting bits given by this software engineer from Sun.
January 2007
- 31st - Learning Perl, Randal L. Schwartz. O'Reilly Associates
- Programming - aka The Llama book. The book to read to learn Perl programming. I had it for a while and read it by chunk, mostly because of other opportunities to read or more urgent needs. I finally finished it. Note that I had learnt Perl, self-taught, reading Advanced Perl Programming (now as Second Edition), a few years back.
- 29th - Asterisk, The Future of Telephony, Jim Van Meggelen, Leif Madsen and Jared Smith. O'Reilly Associates
- Sysadmin - This books cover Asterisk, the VoIP server software for Linux. This is resourcefull if you want to get started quickly with it. But there are a large number of page that basically reprints the reference that is available (it is not really a reprint, but roughly the same content). I wish it was just not there to save trees...
December 2006
- 27th - Leica M7 Handbook, Jonathan Eastland. Ajax
- Photography - Pure curiosity to read about the Leica M7, the last of the Leica rangefinder film camera. Not sure how useful it is if you don't have the camera.
- 26th - Lighting for Portrait Photography, Steve Bavister. Rotovision
- Photography - Practical exemples on how photographer setup their lighting for portraits photography. Various genres and subject are explained.
- 19th - The DAM Book, Digital Assets Management for Photographers, Peter Krogh. O'Reilly Associates
- Computing, Digital Photography - Everything you need to know about managing a large collection of photographies, as a photographer.
- 9th - Learning XML, Erik T. Ray. O'Reilly Associates
- Computing - If you want to learn XML, this is a good pick. The book covers XML and stylesheets (CSS and XSLT) as well as API (SAX and DOM). It actually leave me a better impression than XML in a Nutshell. Still an introductory book to XML.
November 2006
- 28th - Understanding SOAP, Kennard Scribner and Mark C. Stiver. SAMS
- Computing - SOAP is a XML based RPC protocol designed to work over HTTP and other protocols. Despiting the author claiming that this book is not Microsoft oriented, it still have example written in VB and half of the book used for a chapter about binding SOAP to COM. That makes it go lower in my ratings. Fortunately I just borrowed it from the office bookshelf.
- 21st - Le saint des seins, Guillaume Nicloux. Librio
- Crime - French - Another "Le Poulpe".
- 15th - Nazis dans le métro, Didier Daeninckx. Librio
- Crime - French - Part of the series "Le Poulpe". What could be considered as a French pulp.
- 12th - Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks. Pocket Books
- Science-Fiction - Another Culture novel.
- 10th - First Meetings in the Enderverse, Orson Scott Card. Tor
- Science-Fiction - 4 shorts from the Ender's Game series, 2 before, one after and a reprint of the original short "Ender's Game". I haven't read anything in the Ender's Game series, but now I'm intersted in it. It only took a couple of hour to read. Apparently the title of the book varies depending on the print.
- 9th - C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4, Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield. Prentice Hall
- Programming - An update of C++ Programming with Qt 3 for Qt 4. Brings its own set a valuable information, but if you have already read the old one, you might not want to wast time reading this as most of the concepts still apply.
September 2006
- 24th - 21 Dog Years : A Cube Dweller's Tale, Mike Daisey. Free Press
- Humour - The tale of a cube worker are Amazon, describing the insanity found in companies of the dot-com era. Sometime scary about what was the thinking, and may be a good reason why the bubble imploded, even thought Amazon is still around, alive and kicking.
July 2006
- 30th - Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, Erich Gamma and al.. Addison-Wesley Professional
- Programming - Design Patterns are concept for programming oriented towards maximum code reusability for object-oriented programming. Any OO programmer probably use some design patterns without even knowing. A must read.
June 2006
- 12th - The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman. Basic Books
- Psychology and design - Describing today human interaction design problems by just taking example on everyday things, like taps, door nobs and telephone systems and the user psychology.
May 2006
- 10th - The Humane Interface, by Jef Raskin. Addison-Wesley
- Computer Science - This book provides you with theory and practical example on how to make a user interactive interface more humane. It also provide you with new directions to explore as well a some way to compute how efficient is your interface.
- 3rd - User Interface Design for Programmers, by Joel Spolsky. APress
- Computer Science - A must read for anybody willing to write software with UI. This book is about common sense in user interface design, not about the peculiar of UI. Really pragmatic.
April 2006
- 27th - Revolution in the Valley, by Andy Hertzfeld. O'Reilly Associates
- Computer History - An insider story of the Macintosh creation, with lot of little details, both personal and technical, from one of the lead software engineer in the original team. The book contains lot of pictures and original development documents (design notes) fron 20 years ago.
- 15th - World War 3.0 - Microsoft and its enemies, by Ken Auletta. Random House.
- Business - The story of the Microsoft anti-trust trial in the US. A documented and insightful report in the anti-trust trial started at the end of the 90's by the Department of Justice of the USA. It uncovers and decrypt the thousand of pages of the trial transcript and provide background facts. I bought my copy for CAD$2.99 + taxes, and it seems to be out of print.
- 8th - STL Tutorial and Reference Guide (1st Edition) , by David R. Musser and Atul Saini. Addison-Wesley. Pick the second edition.
- Programming - A must read for any C++ programmer. STL stands for Standard Template Library and is part of the standard C++ library (defined by the ISO standard). The first edition that I read is a bit outdated, but not that much. API details can be sorted out by the online documentation, and the rest is still really valid. The second edition stick to the standard.
February 2006
- 27th - The Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling. Bantam.
- This book, that I read in electronic format, relates the story of computer crime and phreaking in the 80's and early 90's. I downloaded it from the Maemo Plucker port page.
- 24th - Linux Server Hacks, by Rob Flickenger. O'Reilly Associates.
- Sysadmin - A nice generalist book for sysadmins on Linux. See my blog post
- 5th - KDE 2.0 Development, by David Sweet. SAMS Publishing.
- Programming - The official KDE 2.0 developers' guide. Also available online. I read it learn more about KDE development.
January 2006
- 29th - Postfix, the Definitive guide, Kyle D Dent. O'Reilly Associates.
- Sysadmin - This book answers most questions you have about Postfix, how to use it and how to configure it. more...
- 16th - Linux Unwired, Rogers Weeks, End Dumbill and Brian Jepson. O'Reilly Associates.
- Sysadmin - It is all about getting you Linux system wireless connected, be it through Wifi, Bluetooth, IRDA or even cellular phone. A good practical book on how to handle these technologies, even though they have evolved since. more...
- Kerberos, the definitive guide, Jason Garman. O'Reilly Associates.
- Sysadmin - An all-in-one manual for deploying the Kerberos authentication system into your organisation. Kerberos is a secure distributed authentication system developed at MIT, designed to allow single-sign-on login. It works on UNIX, MacOS X and Windows 2000 (it is part of Active Directory). more...
- Spamassassin, Alan Schwartz. O'Reilly Associates.
- Sysadmin - is a practical book for whoever wants to deploy Spamassassin on his email system. I explain how to install with various MTA, including Postfix. more...