Customer Reviews:
Serious Business of Linux and Open Source.......2003-05-23
Users love software that they don't have to pay for. But, some software professionals have to make a living creating and maintaining that software. Many companies today grapple with the question, "how to make money with Linux and Open Source?" Some software business leaders are worried about whether Linux and Open Source are impacting business viability of operating systems/environment business. Enterprise business and IT managers are quite happy to see the trend towards software they don't have to pay for. But, most often they do not understand what the implications are and what the fine prints way. Martin Fink has done an excellent job of compiling all the fundamental and essential information on the business aspects of Linux and Open Source software. He clarifies and removes many myths people carry in their minds. Probably this is a "one of its kind" book that brings together the various angles such as the overview of terms, understanding legal lingo, business model aspects, talent management aspects and so on. The book covers the essential technical aspects lucidly and adequately. If you are looking for a deep technical source for Linux and Open Source architectures, there are enough pointers in the book; but, this book is not meant for that purpose. I recommend this book for software engineers who have to understand the business aspects and Enterprise IT/Business Managers who are deploying/planning Linux and Open Source components in their business. The timing of the book is perfect. This book is a good candidate for bringing out update versions as the domain expands and matures. I don't know whether Martin Fink plans to upgrade the book year after year.
A book for Enterprise customers looking at Linux/Open source.......2003-02-21
I have just finished reading the book "The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source" and wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed it. I am currently passing the book up my chain of command at work...
Linux and Open source is not "just" for geeks anymore. Business is embracing it and needs the guidance this book has to offer. It is the first book I have seen which addresses Linux and open source from a business perspective.
The background on Linux and Open source brings the reader up-to-speed on the key players and culture of the open source community and why it would be considered - staying focussed on facts and data. From this, Martin goes on to discuss the different issues one must address in considering the implementation of this technology in the Enterprise including the real costs and benefits.
Martin lends credibility to this topic as he is currently the VP & CTO at Hewlett-Packard heading its Linux Systems Division. He has to grapple with these issues everyday...
At a conference where Martin was speaking at recently, a senior executive at IBM mentioned that he was giving this book (an HP executive's book) to IBM's customers. Having read the book, I now understand why.
A must read if you consider open source in your business.......2002-10-12
The author is definitely speaking from experience, providing valuable insights and recommmendations. Coming from a person who's been heading the Linux Systems Division of HP for over three years, it's not surprising.
Part I brings the reader to a sufficient level of familiarity with Linux, open source, licensing, communities and celebrities. Unless you are fully in touch with the open source world, you will certainly learn useful information in this part.
Part II explains what it means to implement Linux in your operations. No attempt is made to review or benchmark available distributions, and no selection process is presented, only some guidance is provided. This is understandable: Linux can take many shapes and forms and you can even create your own distribution. Because of this diversity, a whole chapter is devoted to standards that make it possible to use multiple distributions. The subject of Total Cost of Ownership is also covered, not in terms of numbers, but in terms of items to consider for calculating a total cost. There is no magic formula here, only an indication of what you should consider and how open source can affect the bottom line. The author then discusses the activity of deploying Linux, considering the issues of migration, coexistence, hardware, support, and training. Here again the author provides essential guidance without covering all the details of such undertaking.
Part III is about how to integrate open source into your organization. This is probably where most of the added value of this book lies. It is really in this part that the author draws from his experience in managing open source in a large organization. He first attempts to provide a functional model for an organization developing software, focusing on enabling an open source process as opposed to a conventional development model. This model may assume a large set of developers and may come out of the blue (it is presented then discussed), but it clearly demonstrates how much of a cultural change it requires to fully reap the benefits from an open source process, and how much other corporate functions such as marketing and HR have to adapt accordingly. Most importantly, this model can boldly be used as a replacement for conventional closed-source development. The author then covers other valuable topics: gated communities, the time value of software and how open source changes the equation and can be used to your advantage, the business models around open source, when to participate or create open source software, and what should be considered when deciding to use open source.
A highly recommended reading for anybody who is considering leveraging the benefits of open source within their organization.
Book Description
Developed by an extremely active open source community, Moodle is a sophisticated course management system that's ideal for creating dynamic online learning communities and for supplementing face-to-face learning. Used in more than 115 countries and supporting over 60 languages, Moodle can scale from a single-teacher site to a 40,000- student university. Teachers who use Moodle have access to an array of powerful tools such as assignments, forums, journals, quizzes, surveys, chat rooms, and workshops. Using Moodle is a comprehensive, hands-on guide that explains how the system works, with plenty of examples and best practices for its many features and plug-in modules. Authored by a member of the Moodle community, this authoritative book also exposes little-known but powerful hacks for more technically savvy users. For anyone who is using-or thinking of using-this CMS, Using Moodle is required reading.
Customer Reviews:
Very basic, adds nothing that's not in the manual.......2006-08-02
I was very disappointed with this book and will be returning it.
If you have spent a few minutes playing with Moodle and read even a little of the online manual, this book adds nothing new. The system is easy to figure out, as most items are pretty self-explanatory and each option has a handy pop-up help screen that explains anything that you don't understand. The online documentation is very good.
I was hoping this book would explain how to do more advanced things in Moodle - how the many available add-on modules work and what they contribute to a finished system, tips and tricks to add videos and flash files to your courses, best practices for course development, advanced customizing, etc. But there was none of that in the book - only the same information that is already included free with Moodle. Save your money!
As good as it gets.......2006-07-02
Executive Summary: Good, well written overview, buy if you can afford it, a good book by the standards of how to publishing but not critical as a lot of stuff is on Moodle's site.
................
Moodle has about 50% of the education market now and there are a lot of people working on it and a ton of information available through moodle's site. Mooodle 1.6, which I am using, has yet to stablizie properly and there are all kinds of bugs needing to be tackled. These vary depending on what level of Apache you use and what your level of admin access is. So, though it is more focused than a lot of other books, your milage will obviously vary depending on your logistics.
Moodle itself is easy enough to use and it helps to be familiar with it before reading through the book. Like most of the other books in this range, I just skim it as I more or less know how to use the admin panel; the book concentrates on front end classroom stuff, not on setting up Moodle and as all classes vary and teachers uses different methodologies or none, it is hard to write a definitive book on a pliable tool. The book is written in very clear and cogent Engish and this is not always the case with how to geek books, so that is a big plus.
Also, there are a few interesting teaching insights in the book, more than most others I have read and they are valuable. It gives for example, novel ways to use Wikis. But you would probably hit on these yourself after a while.
There are different ways of using the functions (different levels of access for teacher only, groups of students and teacher, or everyine doing the class). There are also different ways of teaching; I prefer a more informal approach and beleive in giving the students a lot of rope. This means I will use some functions and ignore others.
I have skipped the set quizes/ exams section for examole as it seems like a lot of useless work unless you have hundreds in your class. But again YMMV. I give it 5 stars as it is a well written book that is more focused than some others I have reviewed here.
Not Indepth Enough!.......2006-06-28
The book is OK as a read, but isn't very strong when it comes to actually using Moodle. I was expecting much deeper information than is found in this book. I'm still going to have to spend hours just trying things out on Moodle before I can do anything of real use. It appears that Moodle can be a very powerful tool, but the book seems to focus primarily on entry level knowledge. Too bad.
An interesting look at a quality open source package..........2005-12-30
It's always fun when you catch wind of something technical that you didn't even know existed. That's the position I'm in with the O'Reilly book Using Moodle - Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System by Jason Cole. This is a very cool software package, and the book covers it very well.
Contents: Introduction; Moodle Basics; Creating and Managing Content; Using Forums, Chats and Dialogues; Quizzes; Workshops; Assignments and Exercises; Journals; Glossaries; Lessons; Wikis; Grades and Scales; Managing Your Class; Surveys and Choices; Putting It All Together; Moodle Administration; Index
I had no idea there was any open source content management systems (CMS) out there, much less ones with a rather quirky and cool name like Moodle. This book is published under the O'Reilly Community Press imprint, which means that people intimately involved in the technology create the documentation that is then put into print and distributed by O'Reilly. It's also licensed under the Creative Commons structure, so it's designed to be used and built on by others. I think O'Reilly should be commended for providing this valuable niche to the technical community. The author has put together some solid documentation on Moodle, supplemented by his warnings and tips based on real world experience. Although you might be able to get a drier version of the documentation online, all it would take is one or two of Cole's warnings to save you more than the cost of the book many times over. Even if you're not necessarily considering Moodle as a CMS, it's worth reading the book to see how elegant an open source software solution can be. It'd be really hard for me to recommend commercial solutions costing tens of thousands of dollars after reading this volume.
This is a well-done book that can open your eyes to what an open source solution can provide, whether it's for a CMS or something else. Worth a read...
MOODLE ON DUDE!.......2005-11-05
What's in a name? Well, quite a bit if you're talking about "Moodle." Author Jason Cole, has done an outstanding job of writing a book for instructors learning how to use Moodle.
Cole begins by discussing Moodle as a CMS and surveying its tools and features. Next, the author gets you started using Moodle. Then, he covers individual tools in the basic Moodle package. The author continues by delving into the management of your course, including adding and removing users, creating user groups, and backing up your course. In addition, the author next covers Moodle's built-in survey functions for assessing your class. He also pools all the disparate tools into a comprehensive whole and shows some of the creative ways teachers have used Moodle. Finally, he covers how to administer an entire Moodle site.
With the preceding in mind, the author has done an excellent job of showing universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, businesses, and even individual instructors how to add web technology to their courses. So, Moodle on dude!
Book Description
After reading this book, I now have a clear understanding of how Nagios works, how to implement it across all types of networked equipment, and even how to shut it off during my week of on-call. I give this book a 10/10.
— Joe Topjian, Adminspotting.net
Pro Nagios 2.0 explains how to install and administer Nagios, the web-based enterprise management tool that helps monitor Unix, Windows, network devices, infrastructure equipment, and applications. You'll learn how to architect Nagios installations, deploy agents and plug-ins, and monitor a variety of assets, which include applications across a variety of platforms and operating systems. Nagios has the power to alert you to current and future incidents that could impact the availability, performance, and security of monitored assets.
The book's real-world configurations and supporting materials will enable you to deploy Nagios and integrate other tools (like MRTG and Snort) on a helpful step-by-step basis. Integrating Nagios with a variety of other tools can add more functionality to its internal monitoring and alerting capabilities. The book covers additional topics like security, redundancy and failover, and plug-in development. And it shows you how to create your own Nagios plug-ins, to monitor devices for which Nagios may not provide plug-ins.
Customer Reviews:
Good introductory text.......2007-03-08
This book is great as an introductory book for Nagios. Although it doesn't cover some advanced functionalities of Nagios in depth, it tells you enough to know about them and research more.
It takes you step by step to configuring your Nagios the right way, and exploring all of it's many features along the way. I bought this book to start with Nagios, and it has succeeded to completely fulfill my expectations.
There are good checkpoints on the end of each chapter, which is a nice touch.
What I liked the most myself, is that author has put in "best practices" to show you not only how to do things, but also how to do them the way they should be done, which is what I expect to get out of a good book.
Nagios Network and Server monitoring.......2007-01-09
A very good introduction to Nagios. V. thorough and detailed. I would have liked more detail on monitoring SNMP devices and server monitoring especially gathering stats from HP servers with Compaq (HP) agents installed but this may be too specialised for this book. Basic Windows server monitoring is covered. Highly recommended for Nagios novices.
Great resource for a great product.......2006-09-06
Nagios is an open-source software tool that constantly monitors your system and provides feedback when it appears that there may be a problem. Nagios is a Linux based product that allows the administrator to track a wide variety of hosts, systems, services, and just about anything else they would want to know about. Completely configurable, the administrator sets thresholds and the system creates and alert any time this threshold is met. The beauty of this sort of system is that it allows the administrator to be notified of potential problems before they become major problems.
Even the notification method is configurable as it will email a message, create and instant message, use SMS paging, text messaging, etc. Once you are notified if you want to check on the system you can enter the web interface and view the current network status, notifications, problem history, log files, etc.
As is often the case with open-source applications, the product is fantastic but the documentation not quite up to par. That is where this particular book comes in handy. The author goes through all the details of setting up a Nagios server from the beginning decisions of just where to place the server to the set up of individual objects, notifications, groups, permissions and exactly how to check services and objects. He even goes so far as to discuss how to integrate Nagios into other products such as Snort and developing and writing and plug-ins.
Written in a style that is easy to follow for the average Linux user who is comfortable with the Linux filesystem, editing configuration files, and generally working with the command line. This is not for the new user familiar only with the graphical desktop environment. But for the Linux system administrator with an intermediate level or higher skill set Pro Nagios 2.0 is an excellent resource and is highly recommended.
Ideal introduction to Nagios for all skill levels.......2006-09-04
I recently received review copies of Pro Nagios 2.0 (PN2) by James Turnbull and Nagios: System and Network Monitoring (NSANM) by Wolfgang Barth. I read PN2 first, then NSANM. Both are excellent books, but I expect potential readers want to know which is best for them. The following is a radical simplification, and I could honestly recommend readers buy either (or both) books. If you are completely new to Nagios and want a very well-organized introduction, I recommend PN2. If you are somewhat familiar with Nagios and want detailed descriptions of a wide variety of Nagios plug-ins, I recommend NSANM.
PN2 is an extremely well-written book. James Turnbull's style is very easy to understand and his message is well thought-out. One of my favorite aspects of PN2 is the author's multiple recommendations. He doesn't just explain options and features; he says what he thinks works best. Turnbull's syntax examples are very helpful and thorough.
I found PN2's approach to be just what I expected and needed. A basic Nagios user could read the first five chapters (Installation, Basic Object Configuration, Security and Administration, Using the Web Console, and Monitoring Hosts and Services) and have a working, capable Nagios installation. The last five chapters (Advanced Commands, Advanced Object Configuration, Distributing Monitoring, Redundancy, and Failover, Integration Nagios, and Developing Plug-ins) address more advanced topics.
I was particularly glad to see security addressed as an important topic. I liked his explanation of why not to use .htaccess files with Apache (p 92-93). PN2 also introduces working solutions for redundancy and failover (topics not explicitly covered in NSANM). The author takes steps to ensure readers really understand Nagios; for example, he explains macros well, while NSANM mentions them without much thought.
I did not encounter any real technical problems with PN2, hence its high rating. I saw the author mention TCP as the transport protocol for SNMP on p 181; it should be UDP.
PN2 is an ideal book for anyone who wants to run Nagios. I believe new Nagios readers should read PN2, and strongly consider NSANM as a complementary reference volume.
Advanced monitoring solutions for senior IT staffs.......2006-07-25
--- DISCLAIMER: This is a requested review by Apress, however any opinions expressed within the review are my personal ones. ---
With 366 pages this is the most compact Nagios monitoring solutions guide on the marcet. Period !
You can easily take the book with you anywhere you go.
Note however, that Turnbull seems to hit the ground running. The reader is assumed to have at least
some general knowledge of Linux, the command console and roughly how the system works.
Also Turnbull does give a basic function rundown of Nagios in the first 80 pages of the book, it is more
the advanced users that will appreciate the countless documented approaches for monitoring solutions
that are documented in the rest of the book.
He covers a wide range of topics and virtually goes the extra mile. While I found especially the sections
on Security, NRPE, NCSA and SNMP very detailed, the book does really cover a lot of ground in ALL
chapters with a nice mix of details within the text.
Turnbull clearly covers topics which are either not at all or at least not in such detail documented in other
books I have read so far (f.e. failover, redundancy, indirect monitoring, on demand macros, daisy chaining,
adaptive monitoring, freshness checks, the event broker, the embedded perl interpreter, the NSClient++ etc.)
... and the good thing is he doesnt stop there ;-)
Therefore, I would consider Apress's book focused towards software architects, system integrators,
senior system administrators, programmers and developers and I believe it serves this marcet very well.
The books contents is at least 3-6 months newer than other books on the marcet. So simply put, if you are
serious about learning advanced monitoring solutions than you currently have no choice but to get this book.
>> Please find a more detailed review and book comparisons by deploying my profile.
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Book Description
In a typical organization, there's always plenty that to do such as: pay vendors, invoice customers, answer customer inquiries, and fix bugs in hardware or software. You need to know who wants what and keep track of what is left to do.
This is where a ticketing system comes in. A ticketing system allows you to check the status of various tasks: when they were requested, who requested them and why, when they were completed, and more. RT is a high-level, open source ticketing system efficiently enabling a group of people to manage tasks, issues, and requests submitted by a community of users.
RT Essentials, co-written by one of the RT's original core developers, Jesse Vincent, starts off with a quick background lesson about ticketing systems and then shows you how to install and configure RT. This comprehensive guide explains how to perform day-to-day tasks to turn your RT server into a highly useful tracking tool. One way it does this is by examining how a company could use RT to manage its internal processes. Advanced chapters focus on developing add-on tools and utilities using Perl and Mason. There's also chapter filled with suggested uses for RT inside your organization.
No matter what kind of data your organization tracks--from sales inquiries to security incidents or anything in between--RT Essentials helps you use RT to provide order when you need it most.
Customer Reviews:
Dissappointing.......2007-01-11
I was very dissappointed with RT Essentials. I had been using and administering an older version of RT for some time, but when I upgraded to the current version I thought I would benefit from reading this book. There are a lot of new features in the later versions and this book just barely mentions them. I had the feeling that it just almost told me what I wanted to know, but not quite. I would very much like to see an expanded, more detailed more comprehensive edition. I think it would take a book twice the size of the current edition to do RT right. I want complete tutorials on writing scrips, using templates, using custom fields, using saved searches, etc.
Helpful, but already dated.......2006-08-07
Request Tracker (RT) is a great product. I am the only sysadmin at a small company, and having an automated tracking system is going to be an immense benefit for me. I bought "RT Essentials" to help me get up to speed on RT3 really quickly. And, since it was written by the programmer who's responsible for RT, the book had lots of detail and tips.
However, when it came down to implementing some of the code in the book, I found that it was already outdated. For example, I tried to set up the Autoreply template with Password by copying the code straight out of the book. It didn't work because the program codebase has changed too much since the book was released.
I was able to fix my template problem by hooking into the great RT user community, where the author contributes frequently.
All in all, I thought the book was really helpful for getting RT installed and getting me up to speed. For the nitty-gritty, I'd rely on the online wiki and great user community.
Excellent Software, but Average Book.......2006-05-01
We've been using RT for several years. As one happy customer mentions at Best Practical's site, managing a project or service driven organization without RT is like watching TV without a TiVo. The software is powerful, flexible, and above all, adaptable to many styles of management for more than just technology projects. No question, the software gets 5 stars.
This book, however, is largely a reorganization of the information provided with the software. If you prefer to read printed materials instead of PDFs or HTML, this book will save you money on printer paper. But if you're looking for best practices, recipies, or enhancements such as those you'll find in the RT Wiki, you may be disappointed. In fact, for most of the advanced capabilities, you are referred by the book to other resources. The book does contain the occasional nugget, such as a half dozen lines of code to truly delete a ticket and related data. With some searching, you'd be able to find those, and better, at the RT Wiki, such as the particuarly valuable contributions from the University of Oslo (do an A9 search for "RT prosjektgruppen").
Compared to most O'Reilly books which set the bar for excellence, this one is merely average. However, I do recommend this book as an introduction for those considering whether it's worthwhile to move to RT from some other enterprise ticketing system, and for techs to give to managers who are more comfortable with hard copies than electronic documents. For any RT admin, it's certainly worthwhile to have documentation printed and organized in an easy reference, considering how much you've saved on the excellent software itself.
QUITE THE TRACKER!!.......2006-02-21
Are you an end-user, system administrator or developer who interacts with RT on an occasional or regular basis? Authors Jesse Vincent, Robert Spier, Dave Rolsky, Darren Chamberlain and Richard Foley, have written an outstanding book that is for everybody who has to use RT to manage tasks.
Vincent, Spier, Rolsky, Chamberlain and Foley, begin by providing some background about what ticketing systems are and how they can help save your job and your sanity. Then, they walk you through the process of setting up an RT server and configuring sane system defaults. The authors continue by showing you how to get up and running with RT's web interface. In addition, they explain how to interact with RT from your shell or console window. The authors also step you through the basics of turning a virgin RT server into a useful tool for tracking what you need to do inside your organization. Then, the authors show you how to extend RT's standard behavior with custom business logic. Next, they provide a look inside the RT configuration at Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems, a nonexistent company that makes heavy use of RT to manage their internal processes. Next, the authors walk you through RT's files on disk; as well as, the details of its database tables. Then, they describe how DBIx::SearchBuilder works. Finally, they show you how to set up a local sandbox for modifying and extending RT without putting your production server in harm's way.
This excellent book will be considerably more useful to you if you have at least a basic understanding of the Unix command line. Above all, this book will be very useful to you if you also have a basic understanding of Unix systems administration skills, and at least a little bit of experience programming in Perl.
general inner structure of RT .......2005-09-25
The RT Essential describes the general inner structure of RT software.It mainly helps RT user to understand how to install RT and how to use other tool software ,such as perl and mason ,to develope RT for his own construct.It describes each item in RT generally.
RT has many application.many company use it to develope custumer service system,So I hope the author to write developer book on RT for programming.
Product Description
Two fundamentally different business models of capitalism are operating in the business world today. One is self-destructive and increasingly corrupt. The other is emergent, flourishing, and inspirational. The author explains the differences between the two and reveals the extraordinary results of the more successful model. Profit for Life draws on nearly forty years of research on the empirical connections between stewardship and profitability.
Customer Reviews:
Review of Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels by Joseph H. Bragdon.......2007-04-08
Profit for Life shatters the old paradigm that success in business means sucking the life from people and natural resources by viewing both as dispensable commodities. By showing us how success in business--including big business--goes hand-in-hand with respect for human and natural communities, Bragdon frees us from the wrenching misconception that profit and citizenship represent a kind of zero-sum game.
Bragdon unites head and heart in one of the most uplifting books I have ever read. Profit for Life offers hope with a firm footing. I recommend Profit for Life to anyone with an interest in business management, strategic investment, or corporate citizenship.
Daniel D. Dutcher, J.D., Ph.D.
Project Director
The Clean Energy Group
Montpelier, Vermont
Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels.......2007-01-31
Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels
by Ann McGee-Cooper
How do you measure the value of servant leadership in business? How can we know it works? These have been two of the most frequently asked questions in our consulting practice over the past 30 years.
In Profit for Life, Jay Bragdon provides us with some compelling answers. He does this by setting aside much of the linear cause-and-effect thinking that drives business these days, and adopts a more rounded, holistic approach that gives us deeper insight into the firm.
The book is based on the experiences of 60 companies - Bragdon's "learning lab" - that broadly represent the industry/sector diversity of the world economy. Throughout the text he describes 16 of these pioneering companies, called the Focus Group. The distinguishing feature of all these firms is their effort to mimic living systems - in the ways they organize, manage and add value. This mental model is radically different from the traditional one that views the firm as a money making machine.
Although it may seem counter intuitive, the living system approach yields vastly superior results than the traditional one. For example, the average equity return of learning lab companies was nearly double the S&P 500 over the past decade; and their excess performance continues as this review is written. Bragdon expects such premium returns will diminish over time as the more effective methods of the living system model become copied and enter the mainstream. Nevertheless, these results are a strong affirmation of the milieu in which servant leadership normally operates.
Servant leadership, to Bragdon, is all about relationships. He says "relational equity" is the foundation on which companies build financial equity. When companies care about people and the things people care about, Employees become inspired and their inspiration cascades into everything they do, including their relationships with customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders.
The raison d'etre of these servant-led firms is value creation - value that permeates all relationships. Companies that excel at such value creation pursue a strategy Bragdon calls "living asset stewardship" (LAS). The fundamental premise of LAS is: Profit arises from life, and must therefore serve life if it is to be sustainable.
To understand the strategic value of living asset stewardship, Bragdon makes a critical distinction between living assets (people and Nature) and non-living capital assets (buildings, equipment and financial reserves). We see this in three contexts. First, people are closely bonded to Nature - genetically, physically and spiritually - in ways that capital assets are not. Second, living assets are the source of non-living capital assets. And third, because living assets are inherently creative and emergent, their value grows over time rather than depreciating as capital assets do.
The operating leverage in the learning lab and the 16 Focus Group companies resides in the human heart rather than in mechanistic financial gearing. This is supported by the fact that they generate consistently higher returns on equity while carrying substantially lower debt ratios.
Although traditionally managed companies have been adopting some stewardship practices in the past decade, Bragdon finds their approach differs fundamentally from those in his study. In the mechanistic view of these firms, stewardship is an add-on that is subservient to their drive for profit. By contrast, in companies that have adopted the living system model, LAS is deeply woven into the value creation process - reflecting the fact that they see themselves as "living" and therefore integral to, rather than separate from, Nature and society.
Profit for Life builds on the brilliant work of Arie deGeus, former coordinator of Group Planning at Royal Dutch/Shell, and Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson. DeGeus' classic, The Living Company, noted that long-lived companies had a collective consciousness, were sensitive to their environments, tried to work in harmony with the world around them, and strove to leave a legacy to future generations. Wilson tells us this collective consciousness is an expression of humanity's deep affinity for life, which he calls "biophilia," and that our biophilic instincts have evolved over thousands of generations of natural selection.
In my work as a teacher of servant leadership, I would highlight the paradigm shift Bragdon describes. The mission of leaders in LAS organizations is to serve and grow their people because that is the source of the firm's liveliness and capacity for growth. As Robert K. Greenleaf said: "The first order of business is to build a group of people who, under the influence of the institution, grow taller and become healthier, stronger and more autonomous." That seminal quote is used twice in the book to describe the power and generative capacity of LAS.
I highly recommend this book and will be using it regularly in our practice.
Ann McGee-Cooper, Ed.D., Business Consultant & Executive coach
in the field of Servant Leadership & growing Learning Organization.
Ann McGee-Cooper & Associates, Inc.
An Extraordinary Book: A Must Read.......2006-11-26
I intend to recommend Profit for Life to all my current MBA students. Next fall I am team teaching an MBA core course that combines Operations Management and Managerial Accounting. I intend to make the case that your book should be required reading and part of the course.
I became familiar with the work of W. Edwards Deming in 1990 and attended one of his four day seminars a year later. I also began to follow Peter Senge's work and later read Margaret Wheatley's book, Leadership and the New Science. Tom Johnson's book, Profit Beyond Measure, has been required reading in my Advanced Managerial Accounting elective at the MBA level.
Bragdon's book has brought the ideas, theories, and concepts discussed by these individuals together for me in a way that I could not have imagined. More importantly, he has not only taken their ideas to the next level, but done it in a way that provides a tangible blue print for how to change our current style of command and control management with its focus on profit maximization to a LAS Theory of Management.
The use of the sixteen focus companies from the LAMP INDEX and the author's ability ability to clearly show the distinctions in their style of management from the traditional management models that continue to be taught in almost all business schools, and the success these companies have achieved not just financially, gives those of us hoping to change management education and core business curriculums a new hope.
Thank you for such an outstanding book.
Joseph F. Castellano
Professor, Department of Accounting
University of Dayton Business School
Excellent, highly readable information.......2006-11-18
This is not one of those lightweight business books that repeats its Chapter 1 message over and over. It's chock full of research-based information that anyone involved in the sustainability movement should have. The publisher is Peter Senge's non-profit, so if you're familiar with his excellent work over the years, this would make a great addition to your library. The author's passion for his subject is obvious from page one.
Average customer rating:
- Some Good but Not Enough
- It's a shame this is the only available RM-ODP book.
- VERY comprehensive...
- RM-ODP Finally Explained !!
|
Architecting with RM-ODP
Janis R. Putman
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall PTR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Distributed Databases
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Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond
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ASIN: 0130191167 |
Customer Reviews:
Some Good but Not Enough.......2001-10-21
There is a lot of good information in this book, and it is much more readable than the specifications. Putman is able to give meaning to a terse and deep standard.
However, there is almost no practical application in her book. The running example is left for a hundred pages at a time. There is little to demonstrate how an architecture affects software design and code.
There is also very little to tie concepts together. When finished with the book, I didn't have an overall view of RM-ODP: just lots of little views.
This is the only book available on RM-ODP, so I recommend this book with that in mind. However, I hope Putman is able to revise this work into a more practicle and cohesive form.
It's a shame this is the only available RM-ODP book........2001-05-10
This book will prevent all but the hardiest of souls from adopting RM-ODP, which is a shame since RM-ODP presents so much that is useful to the architect.
You are much better off learning RM-ODP from the ITU Reccomendations than this book.
If you are already familiar with RM-ODP this book does contain some useful nuggets of information--if you are willing to dig hard enough to find them.
Ms. Putnam's book is disorganized and prolix. It is appalling that she quotes herself in the front matter. "Architechting with RM-ODP" is neither of use to the beginner or valuable as a reference to the practitioner.
VERY comprehensive..........2001-05-08
Janis has done a wonderful job of explaining all the key concepts and elements of RM-ODP. Her diagrams are clear, the references are numerous, and you will definitely have a ton of confidence about the RM-ODP once you're finished with the book. I revisited the ISO standards once I finished Putman's book and found the information much more meaningful. Some drawbacks: References to the Zachman Framework (interesting, but that work really didn't move forward appreciably), References to Boehm's Spiral Model (Barry's work is spectacular, but referencing the Rational Unified Process, which is much more mainstream, would have been of great benefit to the reader), and References to some technologies that have disappeared (TINA, for instance). All in all though, don't let that discourage you from getting this book. If you're using RM-ODP, this is THE book to have.
RM-ODP Finally Explained !!.......2001-02-10
Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing
Wow. In a word. This is the definitive source on comprehending the RM-ODP specifications. If you are a Software Architect and are considering the RM-ODP school - this is the book for you.
I have only just completed my first pass through this 800+ page guide/tutorial/reference and know that I will have to pass through it several times again.
The preface to this work quotes Aristotle "To understand anything, you should not try to understand everything". Use this as your guide in plunging through the depths of this work. Operate under the assumption, as I did, that you will either comprehend it on the next pass or it will be referenced again later in the work.
The task Janis Putman must have set for herself in shedding more than light: clarity - on the subject of RM-ODP, had to have been daunting.
She succeeds! Filled to the brim with diagrams, cross-references, different views into the work - this is worth every penny if RM-ODP means anything in your life. If you are involved in distributed system development - you must have this book.
If you have tried to comprehend the RM-ODP specification on your own - stop! I attempted that myself and got somewhere into the middle of it before I lost the threads I was following. This Book will pull it all together for you.
My review at this time is twofold: Relief I made it through the experience and Joy that the trip was worth the time to go from cover to cover.
Book Description
Providing the range of mail-related services expected by organizations can be a confusing, daunting process. Pro Open Source Mail: Building an Enterprise Mail Solution presents a comprehensive guide to managing the most important e-mail services, including user administration, mail transfer agents, remote e-mail access, virus protection, spam and e-mail filtering, web-based e-mail, and mailing list maintenance.
Beginning with installation and configuration of the popular server-based operating system Fedora Core, the book outlines the system and network preparation process geared towards running a complete enterprise e-mail system. Subsequent chapters cover installation and configuration of sendmail, the popular POP3/IMAP server Dovecot, and ClamAV and SpamAssassin for virus protection and spam filtering. With a nod to the global e-mail availability now required by many organizations, this book also guides you through configuration of a web-based mail interface, mailing-list software, and advanced security and privacy topics.
Customer Reviews:
Good for beginners...if you're more advanced, look elsewhere........2007-05-22
If you're a beginner this is a great book. However, I guess I'm at a higher level than what this book aims for. For example, I don't need the whole history of email, nor do I need basics on getting around a Linux system. Also, this book used FC4 and sendmail, while I am a Debian guy who uses Postfix.
If you've never set up a server before, give this book a shot. Otherwise, look for something a little more advanced.
Also - Poor editing! See especially the discussion of IMAP servers (appears as "IMA" in several tables). There are other assorted errata as well. Nothing a second edition can't fix (from what I saw).
Excellent Book.......2007-03-23
This book was really informative from start to finish. I come from a Windows backround, and with the aid of this book, I now an running an open source mail server. I would highly recommend this book!
Great Resource.......2006-11-30
I am very impressed with this book. My interest in deploying my own email server has been peeked by recent events concerning privacy. While I am a programmer and I lean towards open source technologies, I was a little skeptical of my abilities of launching an open source email solution. After about four chapters of this book I relaxed because I realized the author was never assuming anything on part of the reader. Everything was thoroughly documented before me. Plus it's cool that the author adds in a little bit of history here and there on email. I definitely recommend this book. Just remember to get the most out of it, read it front to back.
Customer Reviews:
Samba, open source replacement for Micro$oft's networks........2007-01-09
Samba is great and this book covered the subject thoroughly. Very pleased.
One of the Better Books Out there on SAMBA.......2005-10-24
I tried to get started with SAMBA, but could never get off the ground using material printed in many Linux books. After going through this book, I realized many key concepts that I was missing, such as windows domain accounts to Unix account mappings and such.
This book has an abundance of information in it. Some things that look exciting were some information about the PDC/BDC style integratrion and also Active Directory Kerberos integration. There's also a section on CUPS integration.
Overall I found this resource quite invaluable. Maybe there's online material that is better, but for printed text this is one of the best books out there...
Great technical reference for advanced use of Samba.......2005-09-18
This is not an introduction to Samba but a technical reference written by those who know it best - the Samba Team. If you already know something about Samba then this is the place you will find very detailed explanations of all the internal and external capabilities of Samba-3.0.11 and higher. While it is easy enough to find information on how to set Samba up as a file and print server, how to use its other features is harder information to come by. This book details setting up Samba as a domain controller, backup domain controller, or domain member, network browsing, access controls, record locking, securing Samba, interdomain trusts, printing support, user profiles, administration, monitoring, and tuning. A voluminous tome, most people will not be inclined to read through it but would more likely read the sections relevant to their current needs and the book is organized so that it is easy to use that way. A true technical reference it has everything you are likely to ever want to know about Samba-3 and how to set it up correctly as well as how to resolve common problems. This is a reference that I will be keeping close at hand and you will want to too if you use Samba-3. The Official Samba-3 Howto and Reference Guide, Second Edition is highly recommended.
Sadly disappointed.......2004-12-30
Anxious to set up samba at home I headed down to the local bookstore and picked up this book at full price (perhaps the only samba 3 book there). I think I read about 1/4 of the book and have now decided it will be going back tomorrow. It's easy to read if you have some Windows and some Linux/UNIX experience, but every chapter is plagued with sentences an 8th grade student failing English could have pointed to problems! Sometimes it was difficult to determine what the meaning of some statements should be. In one chapter a discussion of non-encrypted passwords repeated advantages from the discussion of encrypted passwords, advantages that clearly do not exist!
It feels likes the HOWTOs from the Internet were simply copied, so why wasn't there time to edit?
Samba 2 and not Samba 3.......2004-12-30
This book reports the Samba 2 configuration examples and seems to ignore that Samba 3 "talks" directly with LDAP without the numerous "scripts" that are reported in the examples. This ia a Samba 2 daptation to the LDAP directory service and simply sucks!
If you want to make a donation to the Samba "father" John Terpstra, then buy the book but for real stuff, simply go in Internet, you will find exactly the same obsolete documentation, not a word more nor less.
Amazon.com
Everyone in computing has heard of Linux--hundreds of millions use it every day. Every Net user accesses Linux systems dozens of times during any Net session. Yet, because people associate products with companies, Linux--with its thousands of largely anonymous volunteer developers and free availability--is a difficult fit with our world view.
Rebel Code puts Linux into historical and social contexts. Based largely on interviews with the main players and precise historical data (Linux kernel releases are dated to the second), it traces "free software" from its early '80s origin--with Robert Stallman's founding of the GNU Project--and takes it as far as the end of 2000--with GNU/Linux becoming a worldwide phenomenon that runs handheld PDAs, PCs and Macs, IBM mainframes, and the world's biggest supercomputers.
Glyn Moody charts every milestone in the development of the Linux kernel, from Linus Torvalds's first installation of Minix. As importantly, he follows the progress of major "free software" projects (essential to the success of GNU/Linux) from Emacs and GCC to Sendmail and XFree 86, and finishes with KDE and Gnome.
The end result is a curiously exciting and compulsively readable tale that compares with Tracy Kidder's book, The Soul of a New Machine. It's endlessly fascinating, and you'll be up reading well past your bedtime. --Steve Patient, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
A high-velocity chronicle of the open source movement-and its impact on computing, business, and culture.
The open source saga has many fascinating chapters. It is partly the story of Linus Torvalds, the master hacker who would become chief architect of the Linux operating system. It is also the story of thousands of devoted programmers around the world who spontaneously worked in tandem to complete the race to shape Linux into the ultimate killer app. Rebel Code traces the remarkable roots of this unplanned revolution. It echoes the twists and turns of Linux's improbable development, as it grew through an almost biological process of accretion and finally took its place at the heart of a jigsaw puzzle that would become the centerpiece of open source. With unprecedented access to the principal players, Moody has written a powerful tale of individual innovation versus big business. Rebel Code provides a from-the-trenches perspective and looks ahead to how open source is challenging long-held conceptions of technology, commerce, and culture.
Customer Reviews:
Great Insights.......2007-08-12
I ordered this book from Amazon because I had just ordered Linus Torvald's book Just for Fun and this book was also recommended. I am glad I did. Torvald's book was really fun to read and it really created an interest in the Open Source software phenomenon that I have heard about, but had mixed feelings about it for a few years. Rebel Code added to Torvald's account, a rather complete history to the whole phenomenon. The book covered elements that I have heard in the news, but wouldn't have come to mind, like the entry of IBM, the role of Novell, Sun, etc. As each important piece of software was discussed, some seemingly small like GIMP, DNS and Sendmail, the author paused to give a short bio of the author and how they each stumbled into this FOSS world, some quite accidently. There were so many fascinating stories, I am going to hold onto this book.
The history of the development of Linux in detail.......2005-07-17
The book is mainly based on the information collected by the author from various people via e-mail, telephone or personal communication between September 1999 and September 2000, and the interview with Linus Torvalds at a critical juncture in his life, in December 1996, as well as other interviews with key players from the last three years.
The book begins with a story of Richard Stallman, who labored for years to create a Unix-like system, written from scratch that would be free. Hw worked alone at first; then he gradually received contributions from to others, including - thought neither of them knew it in 1991 - Linus, whose Linux program would provide the last major pieces still missing from Stallman's huge software jigsaw puzzle.
The book covers the GNU project from its formal beginning, when in January 1984 Stallman started working on Bison, which was a replacement for Yacc. Having limbered up with this relatively minor task, he moved on to one of the most important. One of the key elements of a Unix system is the C compiler. After an unsuccessful attempt, he returned to Emacs and released GNU Emacs in September 1984. In October 1985 he has founded Free Software Foundation and then proceeded with C compiler and the C library.
The book then describes the biography of Linus, his years at the university and his work on his operating system, his experience with Minix, quite popular at that time in academic area, and fight with Tanenbaum, the author of Minix. The book then brings out the history of the development of Linux in detail.
Besides Linux, this book covers Open Source movement in Netscape, the development of TEX, Perl, Cygnus, etc., and how big companies like IBM adopt Open Source software and contribute to its development.
I would also recommend "The Cathedral & the Bazaar" by Eric S. Raymond in addition to this book.
Must read!.......2004-05-27
The book gives a complete history of open source development starting from the earlier days of RMS and Linus. The strong point of the book is that the depth of coverage on open source history is unmatchable. My most favourite chapters are the ones that describe the early development of Linux and the history of Perl.
Reading the book gives the impression that author's bias against the RMS-style free-software. Also the author gives enough hints of his dislike for Microsoft's style of proprietary software. And towards the end, as the author starts explaining linux' entry into the corporate place, the book tends to be a bit dragging.
Overall, a must read for any open source enthusiast.
For My Hubby.......2003-08-29
I bought this book for my husband so he'll have to review it!
How it came to be..........2003-07-12
I very much enjoyed this book. Mr Moody writes well and entertainingly about the origins of the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Movement. The historic characters in the drama are well drawn and engaging. Time and again I'd remark 'So, that's where he/it came from!' as Moody traced the origin of Apache or Samba or Alan Cox. I was very much reminded of the excellent history of the PC 'Fire in the Valley' that traces the origins of the PC industry to where we find it today. I would recommend Rebel Code to someone interested in GNU/Linux and the inner workings of how it came to be. This is a book for the tech historian, not necessarily the hacker.
If I were to fault the book it would be that is is 3 years old. As such it misses the effect of the tech bust/recession on the Linux movement, and the growing successes it has achieved recently from the third world (e.g. China's Red Flag distribution) to supercomputing. I can only hope Mr. Moody will correct this fault with another edition.
Average customer rating:
- Open Your Mind To Open Source Administration Tools!
- A great place to start
- Not bad, but brief and rather pricey for what it gives
- Another great book on open source tools
- Good material, but too brief.
|
Open Source Network Administration
James M. Kretchmar
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall PTR
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Customer Reviews:
Open Your Mind To Open Source Administration Tools!.......2007-09-18
Open Source Network Adminstration is a collection of open source tools for streamlining and improving virtually every facet of network administration.
Every tool is described in detail, with easy instructions for retrieval, installation from source, configuration and real-world usage.
Coverage includes:
MRTG: Graph bandwidth and other router and network statistics
NEO: Unify the administration of SNMP switches, routers, and other devices
Flow-Tools: Collect and process crucial interface-level Cisco NetFlow traffic data
Oak: Collect and distill syslog messages from servers and network equipment, and automatically send trouble alerts
Sysmon and Nagios: Monitor network hardware and servers and notify administrators of problems
Build your own tools with Bourne Shell and Perl scripting language
In all, this book is a complete guide to monitoring your network and help troubleshoot problems that might occur. Its structure is extremly good and will certainly become any administrator's best friend!
A great place to start.......2004-02-19
I am not a Network Administrator, and I took an interest in this book simply to learn the basic tools used to build and maintain an open source network. In my position there were a number of chapters that particularly stood out for me
Chapter 1: Introduction. I felt this was a very well-written and easy to understand introduction to the world of Open Source network administration. It goes through the basic reasons to use Open Source, answers many of the question that many people only familiar with closed-source software may have, including questions of quality and security, as well as smart reasons to use open source software.
Chapter 9: Basic Tools. Need to know what a ping is, how it works, and why it's important? This book takes he time and effort to carefully explain how basic things such as ping. It explores telnet, netcat, traceroute, MTR, and netstat. It's a great chapter for reviewing these basics and exploring what you require.
Chapter 10: Custom Tools. This chapter gets into explaining the basics of bash scripting, bash itself, basic Perl scripts and what they are commonly used for, and how to use cron. Again, these are basics, but vital to anyone looking for basic knowledge of the environment.
The chapters in between cover subjects suh as SNMP, MRTG, Oak, and Tcpdump, all great tooks in network administration. The author gives detailed explainations of all these tools, how to use them, how to set them up, and offers tests and examples of them in action.
I would recommend these to anyone who is new to putting together an open source network. The instructions and descriptions of all the tools are at a level that I feel most moderately computer-literate people can follow.
Not bad, but brief and rather pricey for what it gives.......2004-01-20
Any IT administrator worth his salt would try to save money for his company while not denying efficiency. This book helps to use some free yet fully functional UNIX tools that help to achieve that goal. Those of us who have been system and network administrators for a long time are always looking for ways to make our jobs easier. The problem is that efficient solutions almost always cost money. Just ask the stubbornly (and foolishly) Microsoft-centric shops about that!
This book covers a good amount of information regarding network methodologies like SNMP. But since the primary purpose of this book is dedicated to open source tools, the majority of the book focuses on those specific tools that the author thinks will be of value.
Overall, this is a good book. Having a single point of reference for free utilities is always a good thing. Not only does the book cover some genuinely useful tools - there's a caveat on that later, though - but it also lists where to get the software and gives instructions on how to compile each package. For someone who is new to UNIX and doesn't really feel comfortable with the idea of compiling software, this book will help to alleviate those fears.
There are some things with this book, however, that don't make it the open source panacea that network administrators might be looking for.
The book assumes that IT shops have Cisco hardware. Whereas there is no doubt that Cisco is the current big boy, the technology market has proven time and time again that those at the top often do not stay there. Since there is no guarantee that competitors will be Cisco-compatible or will have the same functions, many of the tools in this book that rely on Cisco routers will most likely be incompatible with those environments. In some cases this means that entire chapters in this book might be useless.
There is also an entire chapter dedicated to basic network functions, like telnet, ping, and traceroute. I have been working with Solaris for over seven years. I currently am in a position where I have to deal with AIX and SCO. In some cases the operating system revisions are several years old. With that in mind, I have yet to run into a version of UNIX that doesn't already have these commands available right from the operating system.
The chapter on system automation and notification is very cramped. In a single chapter, the author attempts to cover shell scripting, Perl scripting, sendmail, and even text manipulation via sed and awk-like syntax in Perl. That one chapter alone will be a serious cause of brain explosion for someone who has never worked with these tools before. I have taught each of these topics (sans Perl) in my highly-regarded Solaris administration course, and I can tell you that each of these topics requires its own chapter. Compressing all of these topics into one chapter is like compressing "The Silmarillion", "The Hobbit", and "The Lord of the Rings" plus its appendix to a single 100-page book.
Additionally, there are a number of other, very popular open source network tools that are conspicuously left out of this book. The most glaring omission that I noticed is Ethereal, a very popular GNU-licensed network analyzer. I'm sure that other administrators will be able to mention other tools that have been left out.
The most discouraging thing about this book is that it carries what I consider to be a hefty price tag ($44.99 MSRP) for a book that is less than 250 pages long. In addition, this book is a compilation of information that is already available for free on the Internet and can be found without very extensive searching. Overall, this is still a respectable book. It's a good collection of open source network administration tools (albeit only a relative few). But if you aren't a Cisco shop you might find about one-fourth of the book to be useless, and if you are already an experienced UNIX admin some of the other chapters will be of no additional benefit.
Given its potentially limited amount of usefulness based on your environment, I can't really suggest this book unless you are in a Cisco shop and are relatively new to the UNIX world - not because the information isn't valuable, but because the price tag doesn't necessarily justify its value even though the book itself is rather solid.
Another great book on open source tools.......2003-12-26
Open source is the wave of the future, and James Kretchmar's "Open Source Network Administration" (OSNA) catches that wave in fine form. Although the book is only 238 pages, it contains several gems. I read the book specifically for its coverage of the Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG), OSU's Flow Tools, and Sysmon. By following Kretchmar's instructions, I easily installed these three applications.
I was able to accomplish these tasks because OSNA is a "cross platform" book. The author doesn't limit himself to discussing how to run the tool. He gives guidance on how to configure Cisco routers to export NetFlow records or enable SNMP reporting. Sometimes these simple steps are buried in Cisco's Web site, so I appreciated getting straight to business. I literally had these tools running in a matter of minutes thanks to Kretchmar's instructions and the FreeBSD package system (e.g. "pkg_add -r
").
On the down side I thought coverage of old stand-bys like tcpdump, traceroute, and netstat was unnecessary. I would have liked reading about more "niche" tools like MTR. If you like this book, keep an eye out for my "Tao of Network Security Monitoring" in the summer. I'll take a similar approach in several chapters by discussing security-related network monitoring tools.
Good material, but too brief........2003-12-25
James Kretchmar's book, Open Source Network Administration, published by Prentice Hall, offers upcoming and new Network Administrators a down and dirty overview of common Open Source Network Administration utilities.
I've found the book to be well organized, and driven straight to the point. Kretchmar is efficient with his usage of words which makes for a nice light book, that tends to be a bit of dry reading. Not to say that the material covered isn't valuable, but the author wastes no ink nor paper on extra words for the sake of color or interest. While the first chapter goes into a down to basics approach that any beginner or management type could fathom, including one of the best descriptions of, and arguments for Open Source that I have come accross in a book, he quickly dives into the meat of the matter in Chapter 2. To put it shortly, his descriptions, and examples were, well, too short in many areas, and just right in many more.
Kretchmar's use of first hand experience examples in a mission critical environment, and occasional discussions of real world applications are the gold nuggets that this book has to offer. Prescious and useful. I would ask for the next book on Open Source subjects that the author writes, that he include more real world examples to illustrate how an administrator might make use of, or protect from the subject matter at hand.
If I had to rate this book on a 1 - 10 scale, I would give it a 7, only for the brevity. I would highly reccomend that users working with Open Source Network Administration tools get this book, and use it in conjunction with more detailed texts on the specific software or protocols you are interested in. Then take some time and do the reading, this isn't exactly light stuff to read on a Sunday afternoon.
David B. Hostetler
President. Coastal Area of Texas Linux Users Group.
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