Review of "Programing Android" by Zigurd Mednieks

Programming Android by Zigurd Mednieks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Want to get into Android programming? What better than a book called Programming Android from O'Reilly! :) This is a GREAT resource! The book is well-organized into sections, giving you information on how to setup your environment all the way up to handling more recent topics like NFC.

I find that the style of the book works well as a reference to look up roughly how you would do something, like setup NFC P2P or setup some OpenGL graphics, as well as a running tutorial to read through to learn how things work. The book is full of code examples (available online too) and valuable information on how to properly implement your applications (see Chapter 10 - A Framework for a Well-Behaved Application).

Reading this book enlightened me to a great way to implement one of my projects without worrying about certain runtime issues. Originally I had considered putting logic in a run loop in the application and shutdown when it left... but that wouldn't work out right when I needed information live, but cached information would be good. The book enlightened me to "Content Providers" which using a service could provide the necessary cache I needed. Later on I discovered that the service by itself would solve my problem, but without the reading, I wouldn't have stumbled upon the path as quickly!

The author, Zigurd Mednieks, has done a great job in writing a strong book on Android to compliment the vast amount of information available through Google's documentation. I suggest you get this book, especially the eBook form - you can easily search through and find references / copy code-bits.

The eBook format of this book was provided free through O'Reilly's Blogger Review program, you can purchase the book from the O'Reilly book store at: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023005.do
You can support this blog by purchasing the book through Amazon at: Programming Android
View all my reviews

Review of "The Manga Guide to Relativity" by Masafumi Yamamoto, Keita Takatsu, and Hideo Nitta

The Manga Guide to Relativity

If you have a curiosity about physics, this is a fun way to sate it. "The Manga Guide to Relativity" by Masafumi Yamamoto, Keita Takatsu, and Hideo Nitta is a beautiful blend of manga, humor and science.

I had this book for quite some time and decided to try to get through it... little did I know that I would finish it in only a few hours of reading! While I understood some of the concepts at a very high level, some of the paradoxes and details typically got me. This guide's illustrations make the complex issues easier to grasp, while the chapter reviews help explore the topics in a little more depth.

Even though the manga was constructed with the intent of explaining the complex concepts of Special and General Relativity, it did not deviate from the tried-and-true manga recipe: bizarre scenarios, extreme characters, and strange character appearances.

The ebook format was well-implemented and worked beautifully on my Touchpad. While some PDFs choke due to overly complex layouts, this manga was smooth to navigate and rendered beautifully. Anybody used to reading mangas using "Perfect Viewer" on Android should install the PDF plugin to read this, it works great in two-page mode.

This ebook is a great read and its quality entices me to check out the other books in the "Manga guide to ..." series. If you're a high-school student just getting into physics or a manga fan looking for some intellectual fun, this book is a perfect addition to your collection.

The eBook format of this book was provided free through O'Reilly's Blogger Review program, you can purchase the book from the O'Reilly book store at: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781593272722.do

You can support this blog by purchasing the book through Amazon at:The Manga Guide to Relativity

View all my GoodReads reviews

Review of "SQL Pocket Guide" by Jonathan Gennick

SQL Pocket Guide by Jonathan Gennick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The complexity of developing database queries with SQL is a challenge often requiring frequent documentation searches. The "SQL Pocket Guide" by Jonathan Gennick is a great converged reference for many common database implementation.

The best feature of this guide is its breadth of detail offered. It provides a high-level view of database structures and provides useful details for taking strategies available in one implementation and possibly using it in another database engine. An example of this are the references from custom database function naming of Oracle's "analytic functions" and DB2's "OLAP functions" to the standard's name of "windowing functions". This allows you to take the naming you are familiar with, have been taught, or overheard and refer to it using that name and finding an appropriate redirection.

If you find that you are working with many different databases or want a quick reference to see if a given structure is available in a given database implementation, this guide is for you. Need a list of common data types for a category of data type: this guide has it. Need the details on dealing with times and dates: this guide has a good 20 pages on it. Even if it may not have all the tiny details you may need on a given topic, it can be a compass for finding your way through detailed documentation to what you want to find out.

The eBook format of this book was provided free through O'Reilly's Blogger Review program, you can purchase the book from the O'Reilly book store at: http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920013471

You can support this blog by purchasing the book through Amazon at: SQL Pocket Guide (Pocket Guides)

View all my GoodReads reviews

Review of "The Art of Concurrency" by Clay Breshears

The Art of Concurrency: A Thread Monkey's Guide to Writing Parallel Applications by Clay Breshears
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With CPUs growing in power by adding additional core as opposed to just getting “faster”, learning how to take advantage of parallel programming is a must. The book “The Art of Concurrency: A Thread Monkey's Guide to Writing Parallel Applications” by Clay Breshears works great as a reference and guide for determining when parallelization may be possible, how it could be done, and what to look out for.

The book introduces the reader to parallel programming with a set of useful rules and guidelines to follow to plan for optimizing algorithms by distributing workloads through concurrent programming. Much of the remainder of the book enumerates some common tasks and how to make them concurrent. One of the best parts of the common task listing is the scorecard for evaluating the quality of the implementation. The scorecard includes the useful performance factors of “efficiency” and “scalability”. It also includes the important details of “simplicity” and “portability”, important when evaluating methods for maintainable code.

The common threading tools OpenMP, Intel Thread Building Blocks, and POSIX threads are described in the early chapters and sprinkled throughout the examples in a useful manner, providing exposure to different ways one might implement concurency; not everyone needs to re-invent the wheel when optimizing tasks.

The eBook format of this book was provided free through O'Reilly's Blogger Review program, you can purchase the book from the O'Reilly book store at: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596521547

You can support this blog by purchasing the book through Amazon at:

View all my GoodReads reviews

Review of "The Nexus" book

The Nexus by Richard Fazio
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Nexus was my first GoodReads "FirstRead" free book. It's a science-fiction novel set in contemporary New York, speckled with bits of metaphysics, conspiracy, and danger.

The main character, Balthazar Sykes, embarks on a personal quest to discover what is going on with his mind, leading him to discover how he became the way he his while building stronger relationships. The quest is experienced through the eyes of many characters. The antagonists' point-of-view is revealed in a few segments, quite effectively giving the shadowy insights that tease the reader until resolved later.

A few of the characters such as Sykes's love interest, Alex, and co-worker Madge, develop to be well-rounded. Others do not get quite the same development time out of necessity: helpful side-characters for lack of importance; antagonists to avoid ruining the suspense.

The story's epilogue works quite well in closing the few open ends left. It is just the right length of story, both in terms of book size and timelines. You get just enough in terms of introducing characters as events begin to unfold, and not too much after the resolution, just bits of closure regarding relationships.

View all my GoodReads reviews