The latest addition to O'Reilly publishing's Hacks series of books, Linux Desktop Hacks (Tips & Tools for Customizing and Optimizing Your OS ), comprises 100 hacks, in 11 chapters, collected by Nicholas Petreley, and Jono Bacon along with more that a dozen other contributors. As the title suggests, these hacks are all about the desktop users, and providing them with tools to customize how Linux works for them. Most of the hacks themselves are great, but some of the explanations accompanying them are a bit lacking.

I received this book for review with high expectations, because it sounded like just the sort of book I've been looking for, for several years. My first impressions were that I wouldn't be disappointed. Perusing the Table of Contents and the index, flipping through the book looking at the code listings and illustrations, most of it seemed like stuff that would be useful. Or at least interesting. There were a few hacks, like adding drop shadows to KDE windows or randomizing wallpapers in GNOME I might do without. (Truth be told I really had to dig for a second uninteresting example there.)

It is particularly pleasing to see that this book isn't strictly GUI oriented. There's a whole chapter on customizing bootloaders, another on text consoles, then another on login managers, and yet another on X-server configuration, all before they even begin to discuss actual GUIs. Being a rather extensive command line user, that second section got my particular attention.

One useful guide I quickly noticed was that each hack is labeled with a thermometer icon indicating the relative complexity of the hack. This may be standard in the O'Reilly Hacks series, I don't know, this is the only one I've read so far. It sure provides a good way to pick out the really interesting ones.

In the brief period that I have been able to use this book I have found it a concise and accurate guide to using the hypertext markup language. The layout of the book is direct. It follows the logical means in which a new web designer might learn to use HTML and XHTML. However, it remains a valuable resource for the experienced web designer to learn new tools or refresh their knowledge on older ones.

Within my knowledge of HTML I have found I rely more and more on this one resource when I have any questions about HTML or XHTML and this book is the second place I look to reference a attribute or search for a new tool. The first being the "Pocket Reference" derived from this edition.

All aspect of the standards, HTML 4.01, and XHTML 1.0 are covered as well as the points in which "popular" browsers (I.E. and Netscape) break the standards.

I recommend HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 5th edition to anyone working in professional web design, or even those that dabble on the web with personal web pages. A closer adherence to the Standards encouraged by this book, and knowledge about how HTML and XHTML work are valuable to even those that work with WISIWIG web editors. You should add HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 5th edition to your reference library.

Programming Linux Games was written by John R. Hall but is partially credited to Loki Software, which may give you an idea of when it was published. Loki Software had a short but very influential life porting commercial games to Linux. Perhaps their most famous and important contribution was their support and development of SDL, the Simple DirectMedia Layer, one of the most widely used crossplatform game development libraries.

The book is copyright 2001, and many things have changed in the intervening years. But it is nevertheless a valuable resource, and only a very few sections are truly out of date. The description and documentation of SDL alone are extremely valuable for even an experienced game programmer. In addition, much of the content is applicable to multimedia applications of all types, not simply games.

This is not simply a collection of man pages in book form. It describes how to architect games, gives a crash course in development on Linux, and covers relatively advanced but useful subjects like programming network games, particle systems, and embedding scripting engines into a game for enhanced customization and flexibility.

The discussion of audio on Linux goes over not just APIs but how sound actually works in a PC and how sound support needs to be constructed. While the section on ALSA describes the obsolete 0.5x API, this is not a serious drawback as the author introduces several alternatives and covers in detail one option particularly suited for games, OpenAL.

The book covers, in detail, graphics and animation with SDL's (2D) API and the Linux framebuffer. OpenGL, the de facto Linux 3D graphics API, gets limited attention, mostly because the subject is complex and has plenty of documentation in its own right. However, it does go over (and provides example code for) how to integrate OpenGL with SDL.

In addition to many tutorial code snippets along the way, through the course of the book the author develops a simple but complete game, Penguin Warrior, using SDL and OpenAL, that supports network play and scripting. The example code has been revised in 2004 and I was able to compile and run all of it given only minor tweaks, with the sole but expected exception of the ALSA example.

The example code is almost entirely in C, though there is a section on TCL, the example scripting language the author chooses to embed into Penguin Warrior. However, it is well generally well-written and someone familiar with C should have no trouble porting it to their own favorite language.

Programming Linux Games is available in printed form from No Starch Press, and can be downloaded for free in electronic form as well. I would recommend it highly for those interested in game and multimedia programming on Linux.

While many have optimized their web search strategies to find any Linux info they may need, some of us still enjoy the simplicity of reaching for a book and scanning its index. If you're one of those kind, Linux Desktop Hacks is the book for you.

Containing a wide range of hacks covering most Linux distributions, this book proved useful on first opening. I had noticed a flickering of my monitor and had been tweaking the X config trying to remedy the problem. Right on page 284 I was introduced to a tool called xvidtune, used to determine the horizontal and vertical refresh rates. A web site to generate xconfig file Modelines was also extremely helpful. It didn't fix the flickering but I was now certain the problem was with the monitor and not the X configuration.

This book covers both the KDE and GNOME desktop environments as well as many popular distributions. Chapters cover a wide range of subjects including Booting Linux, Administration and Automation, the Kernel and Hardware.

While I'm still working on optimizing my web search strategies, I'll always reach for this book first when trying to hack my Linux desktop. A definite must have for any respectable hackers library.

I have never read an O'Reilly "cookbook" style book before and I must admit I am fond of it. There's about 800 pages of recipes in this book. The book uses a "learn by example" approach to learning C#. I think this style of learning is risky as a general rule but probably considered particle by the masses. I also think the authors do a good job of explaining everything. The order and topics of the chapters seem slightly scatterbrained at first, but everything comes together nicely.

Each chapter contains numerous programming problems that any given programmer may need to solve at some point in his career. This format makes the book manageable in small bites. Those of us that have ever tried to jump into the middle of a book and found that you have to ramp up on the code that the authors have been building since chapter 1 will know what I mean here. Its almost like a book of tools and tricks, but on a grander scale. Each task can be something simple, complex, or niche.

The author explains what the problem is and how to code a solution. What seems to separate this book from the rest is the thorough and complete discussion at the end of each problem. The authors explain why the problem was solved with the particular method used. After reading this book and becoming familiar with it I have become a big fan of this writing style.

I believe that you will find this book makes an excellent "how do I do that" reference. For those of you nerds out there with the "My book collection is bigger then yours" mentality, this book looks great on a self. I personally believe that this book is great for experienced programmers that need an introspection of how they think and code.

More on this review, and other of Jim Pharis' musings can be found on his blog at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/binbrain/.

This "Notebook" style of book is new to the O'Reilly world. It gets to the point. Brevity. Its about looking over the shoulder of an "uber-coder" and peeking at what he's doing. Not being a .NET developer won't be a show stopper here. This is especially true if you already have experience in an imperative OOP language such as Java. If you have no previous programming experience this book isn't for you. The book is limited in technical breadth and it covers a lot of material fast. After reading this book a Mono newcomer with a programming background will understand the general concept of .NET and C#, know enough to create basic C# Gtk# programs, and know where to look for more help.

The book was written during what seemed to be the early stages of Mono development. I was skeptical that this book would be outdated before it hit the shelf. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case. I haven't noticed anything in this book that isn't still relevant, although I'm not an expert and I haven't tried many of the code snippets. I think the authors were careful to avoid shelf-rot topics.

The book covers a lot in the 2nd and 3rd chapters. Pay attention, don't blink here, read each of these chapters twice if you need to. Chapters 4 and 5 cover Gtk#. Anybody that has programmed in C/Gtk+ will be able to quickly ramp up on the general idea. The remaining chapters cover XML, network services, and other important tidbits such as generics and security. These last topics are covered quickly but its good to know you can do these things.

More on this review, and other of Jim Pharis' musings can be found on his blog at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/binbrain/.

Picking up this book, the first thing you notice is how great is looks. It's printed in full color, with screen shots on nearly every page. I started the book expecting to jump right in to using iPhoto, but found that the entire first section of the book covers buying the right digital camera and a a guide to taking great looking pictures. I skimmed this section rather quickly as I already owned a camera and understand the basics of lighting and composing pictures. What I did read looked very useful for someone getting into photography for the first time.

The second section covers using iPhoto to organize and edit your digital pics. I was surprised how many handy ways iPhoto 5 has to organize and find pictures easily. The chapter on editing demystifies all the controls and sliders in iPhoto's editing mode. Perhaps the best tip though is the advice to use the enhance button quickly and automatically adjust photos suffering from the affects of being taken in sub-optimal conditions.

Section three details the many ways to share your photos with others. This falls primarily into 2 categories: printing and electronic distribution. These chapters have great tips for getting high quality prints wether you use your own printer or send your photos to a third party printing service. The section on electronic distribution shows you how easy it is to create a DVD you can send to friends and family; a format that even grandma will understand how to view. If you want to post your pictures on the Internet there are lots of useful tips on optimizing your photos for on-line viewing.

The last section covers advanced uses. One of the most valuable explains how to get all those spontaneous photos off of you camera phone an into iTunes. And if you take a lot of photos; more than iPhoto can handle easily, the authors explain techniques for managing multiple iPhoto libraries.

Summary: iPhoto 5 The Missing Manual is a great guide to getting the most out of iPhoto. In addition to covering iPhoto's many non-obvious features, the book includes a guide to buying the right digital camera, and techniques for taking the best quality pictures in many conditions. Best of all the book is beautifully illustrated in full color. iPhoto 5 The Missing Manual is well worth the $30 cover price ($20 on Amazon).