New: All Things O'Reilly

Steven Pritchard at OLFU - Sep 25 2009

Steven Pritchard — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:27:21 PDT

Steven Pritchard (LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition) will teach a full day cram class for LPIC-1 (Linux Professional Institute Certification Level 1) at this year's Ohio LinuxFest as part of the OLFU program.

The Secrets of Fireworks Photography

O'Reilly Media — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:40:00 PDT

The Secrets of Fireworks Photography — Big fireworks shows are thrilling to watch, and they make thrilling photo subjects. Because it's night photography, you'd think that all of the rules of shooting in low light would apply. Ha! This hack from Digital Photography Hacks wouldn't be necessary if that were so. Learn what to bring with you, details on setting up your camera, taking the shots, and of course it's also all about location, location, location. Read the secrets now!

Pre-OSCON, Free Webcast Lineup - And a special offer - Save 40% off registration pricing

Kathryn Barrett — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:38:59 PDT

The theme of this year's OSCON is "Open for Business." Times are tough, making open source technology a smart choice for staying competitive. It gives you the means to drive down costs while increasing system and staff efficiencies. In anticipation of the conference, we've lined up three free webcasts featuring OSCON speakers. And if you're planning to attend OSCON, you can save 40% off registration pricing right now. In celebration of Independence Day—and freedom from commercial software—we're offering the discount code os09jul4, good through July 7.

The Secrets of Fireworks Photography

O'Reilly Media — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:39:58 PDT

The Secrets of Fireworks Photography — Big fireworks shows are thrilling to watch, and they make thrilling photo subjects. Because it's night photography, you'd think that all of the rules of shooting in low light would apply for this assignment. Ha! This hack from Digital Photography Hacks wouldn't be necessary if that were so. Learn what to bring with you, details on setting up your camera, taking the shots, and of course it's also all about location, location, location. Read the secrets now!

Webcast - Cloud Computing: The Next Frontier for Open Source - Jul 9 2009

Bernard Golden — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:31:09 PDT

Duration: Approximately 60 minutes.

Cost: Free

The current financial crisis has raised enterprise interest in two technology trends: open source and cloud computing. In this presentation, Bernard Golden, CEO of HyperStratus will discuss how the two trends reinforce one another, and why cloud computing is a significant driver of enterprise open source adoption.

Key issues he will touch upon are open source's role in application scalability, software licensing, and cloud infrastructures, along with open source product and platforms heavily used in cloud computing.

About Bernard Golden

Bernard Golden is considered one of the true thought leaders in cloud computing. He is CEO of HyperStratus, a Silicon Valley-based consulting firm that helps its clients plan, design, and implement their cloud computing systems. He has over twenty years experience in the technology field, having worked in global consultancies, enterprise software companies, and large IT organizations.

Bernard is the author of Virtualization for Dummies, the most popular book on the subject ever published. He serves as the Virtualization and Cloud Computing Advisor for CIO Magazine, which publishes his highly popular blog examining the benefits and challenges of cloud computing. Bernard is a popular speaker, appearing at many conferences like CloudWorld, OSCON, and EDUCAUSE.

Webcast - Managing & Growing Open Source in the Enterprise: Advice from the Trenches - Jul 7 2009

Rod Cope, Carol J. Rizzo — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:01:41 PDT

Duration: Approximately 60 minutes.

Cost: Free

What are the key elements essential to maintaining effective policies and growing open source usage safely in medium to large enterprises? In this webcast, Carol Rizzo, past CTO of Kaiser Permanente, AIG and CitiGroup, and Rod Cope, the founder and CTO of OpenLogic share their experiences and insights about using open source in the enterprise. This includes creating an effective enterprise open source software governance program that includes strategy, policy, inventory, approvals, and auditing, with plenty of time for Q&A.

About Carol J. Rizzo

Carol J. Rizzo is a technology consultant with 25+ years of healthcare and financial industry experience having served as CTO of Kaiser Permanente, AIG and CitiGroup. Currently, Rizzo is consulting software companies in the health care, financial and media industries. She has managed a variety of technology functions including infrastructure operations, engineering, interactive software development, product development and telecommunications.

About Rod Cope

Rod Cope founded EJB Solutions in 1998, later renamed to OpenLogic, to provide enterprise grade tools and solutions that remove barriers to effective software development and deployment. His extensive knowledge and experience with open source has culminated in a suite of products that enable enterprise control and reduce programmer pain when using and deploying dozens of popular open source technologies.

With 20 years of experience developing enterprise software solutions, Rod has provided technical leadership on significant projects for companies such as IBM, Anthem, Ericsson, Ford, Goodyear, Integral, CourseNet, and Digital Thoughts. Rod is a Sun Certified Java Architect and routinely speaks at technical conferences such as Java Symposia and the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. Rod was selected as one of the Top 10 presenters at JavaOne 2005. He holds both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Software Engineering from the University of Louisville. A lifelong entrepreneur, Rod's first business success was at the age of 13 when he taught himself to program and started selling his own software. His varied achievements include a first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Kentucky state chess champion and sucessful open source implementations at over 17 enterprises worldwide.

In Defense of Social Media (At Least Some Of It)

Joshua-Michle Ross — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:42:02 PDT

Scott Berkun just posted a great rant titled, Calling Bullshit on Social Media. I suggest everyone read it. Berkun raises good points - and I agree the hype around social media warrants taking a critical look. Despite being in general agreement, there are a few areas I can't abide, starting with this statement: social media is a stupid term. Is there any anti-social media out there? Of course not. All media, by definition, is social in some way.

TOC Coming to Frankfurt

Andrew Savikas — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:43:02 PDT

I've had the opportunity to speak with quite a few of my industry colleagues in Europe during the past year, and it became increasingly obvious there was an opportunity to bring the Tools of Change for Publishing message to a European audience. So we've teamed up with the Frankfurt Book Fair to put on a special one-day TOC Frankfurt on Tuesday October 13, the day before the Book Fair begins.

Velocity and the Bottom Line

Steve Souders — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:44:02 PDT

Velocity 2009 took place last week in San Jose, with Jesse Robbins and I serving as co-chairs. Back in November 2008, while we were planning Velocity, I said I wanted to highlight "best practices in performance and operations that improve the user experience as well as the company's bottom line." Much of my work focuses on the how of improving performance - tips developers use to create even faster web sites. What's been missing is the why. Why is it important for companies to focus on performance?

Everyblock's Code is Open-Sourced

Brady Forrest — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:45:02 PDT

The code for Adrian Holovaty's Everyblock has been released. The open-sourcing of the site's system were apart of the Knight News Challenge Program. Everyblock is a very impressive site that aggregates and geocodes local data -- news, crime, fire, restaraunt inspections and reviews - and then lets users define their interests down to the block-level.

Patrick Collison Puts the Squeeze on Wikipedia - How to Cram the Wikipedia onto an 8GB iPhone

James Turner — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:13:59 PDT

Think about Wikipedia, what some consider the most complete general survey of human knowledge we have at the moment. Now imagine squeezing it down to fit comfortably on an 8GB iPhone. Sound daunting? Well, that's just what Patrick Collison's iPhone application does. App Store purchasers of Collison's open source application can browser and search the full text of Wikipedia when stuck in a plane, or trapped in the middle of nowhere (or as defined by AT&T coverage...) Collison will be presenting a talk on how he did it at OSCON, O'Reilly's Open Source conference at the end of July, and he spent some time talking to me about it recently.

Programming Scala

Venkat Subramaniam — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:11:04 PDT

Scala is an exciting, modern, multi-paradigm language for the JVM. You can use it to write traditional, imperative, object-oriented code. But you can also leverage its higher level of abstraction to take full advantage of modern, multicore systems. Programming Scala will show you how to use this powerful functional programming language to create highly scalable, highly concurrent applications on the Java Platform.

Radical Career Success in a Down Economy - Free live webcast now underway!

O'Reilly Media — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:46:33 PDT

Radical Career Success in a Down Economy — We all know we're in the middle of an economic downturn. The news is full of statistics on job loss and unemployment. Everyone is feeling the crunch. In times like this it's natural to worry about your career. Career experts and authors Andy Lester and Chad Fowler will walk you through strategies for preparing yourself to not only stay employed but to find the work you love. Join the webcasts now!

Joshua-Michele Ross's Social Web Guiding Principals for Business - New O'Reilly Insights on Forbes.com

O'Reilly Media — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:18:34 PDT

A Corporate Guide For Social Media—Radar blogger Joshua-Michele Ross offers social media guidelines for business in a new O'Reilly Insights column on Forbes.com. "Social technologies turn many corporate policies upside down," writes Ross. And, he adds: " If you think these guidelines don't apply to you, you are probably already on the endangered species list." Check out O'Reilly Insights to learn how to build your company's social media policies. Read more.

The Hacker Ethic - Harming Developers?

Jim Stogdill — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:52:05 PDT

Is the hacker ethic harming developers? We don't think so, but maybe the idea resonates a little bit? On Monday Neil McAllister posed the question "is the hacker ethic harming American developers?" Slashdot picked it up and Tim forwarded it to the Radar list. As you might expect, it resulted in some spirited discussion.

The US Online Job Market Was (still) Down Big In June 2009

Ben Lorica — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:53:05 PDT

Updating my post from early June, the U.S. online job market still hasn't shown signs of recovering from steady declines that began in September of last year. Compared to the same period last year, there were 50% less job postings in June 2009.

Clean Energy and Security Act - First Step for U.S.

Sarah Sorensen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:54:05 PDT

While we may have had the weekend to try to digest the House's passage (by a close vote of 219-212) of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, I find there's still no consensus on what it means for the U.S. It's not just because it is hard to extract saliency from the 1200 pages that make up the bill, but rather because it's virtually impossible to understand what form the bill will ulitimately take if (and that's a potentially sizeable if) it gets through the Senate. (You may fondly remember the catchy Schoolhouse Rock song "I'm just a bill").

Cubase 5 Tips and Tricks

Keith Gemmell — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:44:41 PDT

Recording, editing, mixing and mastering
Time saving shortcuts
Discover Cubase 5 s hidden secrets
Become a power user
Improve your workflow

Cubase 5 is undoubtedly one of the most powerful MIDI and audio production environments around but are you realising its full potential? This highly readable book is crammed with practical insider tips and tricks on using the program creatively.

Fancy Form Design

Jina Bolton, Derek Featherstone — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:45:41 PDT

Forms' - is there any other word that strikes as much fear into the hearts of web designers? Not any more ...

Fancy Form Design is a practical hands-on, full color book that follows the process of creating visually stunning yet usable web forms, from start to end. The book covers all design elements from planning the form's purpose and interface through to mastering markup, applying style with CSS, and adding interactivity and visual effects with JavaScript. By the end of the you'll will have the code, and wisdom, they need to build fancy forms of their own.

Agile Coaching

Rachel Davies, Liz Sedley — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:46:41 PDT

Discover how to coach your team to become more Agile. Agile Coaching de-mystifies agile practices--it's a practical guide to creating strong agile teams. Packed with useful tips from practicing agile coaches Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley, this book gives you coaching tools that you can apply whether you are a project manager, a technical lead, or working in a software team.

97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know

Barbee Davis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:47:41 PDT

This illuminating book contains 97 short and extremely practical tips from some of the world's most experienced project managers. You'll learn how these professionals have dealt with everything from budgets and purchasing to personnel problems and runaway meetings. 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know offers knowledge that's priceless, gained the hard way through years of experience.

Living Green: The Missing Manual

Nancy Conner — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:48:41 PDT

Taking care of the earth is more important than ever. Living Green: The Missing Manual is an all-in-one resource packed with practical advice on ways you can help the environment by making relatively easy, earth-friendly changes in your home routine, work habits, and the way you shop and get around town. This book teaches you how a few small changes can have a big impact

flex & bison

John Levine — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:49:40 PDT

Learn how to use flex and bison to process text data in Linux or Unix with the updated edition of this classic book. Whether you're interpreting code, configuration files, or any other structured format, flex & bison explains how these flexible utilities solve your problems quickly. This book includes revised tutorial sections for novice users and reference sections for advanced users, with chapters that explain each utility's basic usage and simple, stand-alone applications.

Practical Digital Photomicrography

Brian Matsumoto — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:50:40 PDT

This book is an introduction to digital photography through the microscope in which readers will learn about the three camera types used in photomicrography (point and shoot consumer cameras, digital single lens reflex cameras, and professional (scientific) photomicrography instruments) and the advantages and disadvantages of each. For example, the point and shoot camera has the benefit of a live, real-time preview, active histogram, potential infrared sensitivity, low cost, and video recording capability. Its disadvantages are noise at low light levels and limited dynamic range. A digital single lens reflex has, at low magnification, the advantages of an accurate and sharp focusing screen, low noise at low light levels, and good dynamic range. This camera provides the potential of equaling the quality of scientific cameras but at a fraction of the cost. Its only weakness is the ergonomic deficiencies resulting from having the camera mounted on a microscope. The scientific grade cameras provide the highest image quality with ease of operation. Unfortunately, such cameras are expensive ($6000) and are found, most commonly, in research laboratories. However, such cameras are still within the financial reach of enthusiasts who can afford a professional-level digital single lens reflex. Prices for these types of cameras are dropping and it is anticipated that cameras of this type will be available at $2000-3000 in the next year. A thorough presentation will be made of the methods of attaching the cameras to the microscope and the ergonomics of image acquisition, as well as detailed discussions on microscope illuminators and lighting systems, so that the reader understands such basic image acquisition procedures as obtaining white balance, determining resolution, and edge enhancement. There will be chapters on imaging transparent specimens using darkfield, phase contrast, differential interference contrast, oblique illumination, and Rheinberg illumination. These skills will enable the reader to obtain professional results and will be valuable to the professional photomicrographers as well as the photographic enthusiast.

Programming Objective-C 2.0

Robert L. Clair — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:51:40 PDT

Objective-C is the language of the iPhone and Mac OS X. It is a dynamic object-oriented extension to the C language that has recently undergone a significant update for the first time in decades. Programming Objective-C 2.0 provides a readable introduction to Objective-C with an emphasis on practical programming. In addition to the basics of the language and object-oriented programming, this book covers the features newly added to the 2.0 version of the language: properties, fast enumeration and garbage collection. You'll find that Objective-C, unlike C++, is compact and easy to learn.