Showing posts with label apress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apress. Show all posts

Practical Rails Social Networking Sites (Expert's Voice) Review

Practical Rails Social Networking Sites (Expert's Voice)
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Practical Rails Social Networking Sites (Expert's Voice) ReviewThe is essentially a programming cook book with recipes centered on social networking functionality. That being said - this is not a "getting started on rails" book; you should have some idea of how to use rails (but you dont have to be an expert).
Here are some of the recipes: developing a CMS, blog with RSS, blog with web services, a forum, photo gallery (probably would have been better if this one had used Amazon's S3), adding tag functionality, creating a mobile version of your site, XFN, ...
Unless you're a broke student debating between this and food, I'd get this book. There are decent examples that are useful to see. It's pretty good considering Amazon's cheap price and considering this is the only book out on Rails related to social networking sites (as of when I wrote this review).
Update: I've now read the other Ruby on Rails Social Network Book: RailsSpace. In my opinion I would get both. However if you have to choose one it would depend both on your skill level and taste. Would you rather have more subjects covered with less material, or would you like less subjects being covered more in depth. If you want more subjects covered and you think you can figure out the extra details, then Practical Rails Social Networking Sites is for you.Practical Rails Social Networking Sites (Expert's Voice) OverviewThis book ties together the popular framework Ruby on Rails with another hot concept - social networking websites such as MySpace and FaceBook. Social networking is a kingpin of the Web 2.0 revolution sweeping the Internet right now. Due to its versatility, using Ruby on Rails to build and maintain social networking sites is the perfect partnership.This book will be one of the few project-based guides to Ruby on Rails - perfect for programmers that prefer the hands-on method of learning by example.

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Beginning OpenOffice 3: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) Review

Beginning OpenOffice 3: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional)
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Beginning OpenOffice 3: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) ReviewBeginning OpenOffice 3 walks the reader through using the most common features of OpenOffice, arguably one of the most powerful and complete office suite available. And best of all, it is free! Many companies and individuals are discovering it for the first time as they deal with the need to exchange files with others who are using the newest version of Microsoft Office. Given the choice of upgrading all their systems to the newest version or simply downloading OpenOffice 3, many are examining it as a viable option. OpenOffice 3 can open and edit files created with the newest version of Word and save them in a format the Microsoft Office can open and use.
This brings us to the purpose of this book. How do you find out how to use the features to achieve the results you want? One of the best things about this book is the approach the author uses. The entire book is project oriented so you learn by creating projects and solving problems in a real world scenario. The book covers all the different software components - word processing, spreadsheet, database, illustration, and presentation software. The author does an excellent job of focusing on and detailing the most common needs of a typical office. You can literally start from no knowledge of office suite software at all and learn how to become a proficient user in relatively short order.
The chapter on the word processing module starts from the very basics of opening a file or creating a new one. From there the author leads the reader through formatting, creating and using templates, paragraph styles and other common needs. Then he moves the reader through creating a newsletter, inserting graphics, word wrap, changing styles in a page and other advanced topics. This section ends with understanding how to automatically create footnotes, endnotes, table of contents and style sheets.
The section on the spreadsheet module covers creating a spreadsheet, adding formulas, linking formulas to other cells, and multiple other common tasks. In addition it covers creating charts and graphs and making them easy to understand. The chapters on the presentation and illustration programs are much shorter but the programs are much less complex by design. Presentation software needs to be able to create a slide show, change slides on a predetermined time scale, and add bulleted points and other basic actions needed to provide a solid presentation. The illustration module also is designed to create or edit items for inclusion in newsletters or other publishing needs. It is basically somewhat more powerful than paint but much less than Adobe or similar illustration packages.
The database module is covered well with enough detail to learn how to use it but not so much as to get the reader lost in multiple foreign key linking and the like. The author does a very good job of explaining the use of multiple tables and linking them for efficient database creation. He also covers the creation of input forms, queries, and reports and other functional requirements of database management.
Once you have a basic understanding of the different modules the second section of the book involves putting them all together to share content by building a web page with a database, ability to input information over the web and create queries and reports via the web browser.
The writing is concise while still being detailed enough to provide highly functional information. Using it I was able to create a complete web based database for the processing of financial information for grant requests for a local foundation. Granted I already had an extensive understanding of most of these areas but it was quick and easy to build it based on information supplied in the book.
Beginning OpenOffice 3 is highly recommended to anyone interested in learning how to use this powerful office suite.Beginning OpenOffice 3: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: From Novice to Professional) OverviewDownloaded over 90 million times, Open Office is a free open-source alternative to Microsoft Office and iLife that runs natively on Windows, Mac OS X and most Linux distributions. The software includes a word processor, spreadsheet application, database, presentation software, and graphics. While there are similarities to other closed-source office applications, there are always questions that arise from using new software, and this book will contain the solutions for new and current users of Open Office 3.Microsoft's forthcoming Office suite release, currently titled MS Office 2008, has been delayed yet again, so there's a real opportunity to introduce Open Office to an audience that is ready to ditch their alliance to Microsoft.

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