REVIEWS Books BOOK REVIEWS BY JAMES PYLES

Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think Ask anyone in a technical field how take between start and finish, including ful Code won’t appeal to everyone inter- they arrived at a solution to a difficult false starts, dead ends, U-turns, and all. ested in programming, but this book will problem and you’ll have opened the This isn’t a text from which to learn appeal to readers who want to step be- door to a detailed explana- programming if you’ve yond the nuts and bolts of coding and tion of each step in the never programmed before, examine how programmers think about process and what meth- and it won’t teach you the programming. ods, tools, and aspects of basics of good programming The value-added piece beyond the the problem-solver’s per- because too many rules are book’s pages is the related website, sonality were involved. bent, spindled, and muti- which is continually updated and main- Try to put that in a book, lated. This book is more tained by some of the programmers who and the process is typi- about stepping into the made the book possible and acts as an cally reduced down to the minds of different program- ever-growing extension of the book. If bare mechanics of the mers – each an expert in what I’ve described makes you want to solution, without the nu- particular areas – than learn more, pick up a copy of Beautiful ances and insight. Beauti- about programming in gen- Code and visit the website at http:// ful Code brings those ele- eral. The book compares beautifulcode. oreillynet. com/ . ments back. their thought processes to yours, and Although Oram and Wilson receive perhaps you can graft in a bit here and Edited by Andy Oram and Greg Wilson cover credit as editors, almost 40 pro- there if you find a new way to look at Paperback, 618 Pages grammers contributed to this book. In problems. O’Reilly, 2007 essence, you get to hear those program- One book reviewer said this book is ISBN-10: 0596510047 mers “think out loud” about the ap- “too eclectic to be of general value,” ISBN-13: 978-0596510046 proach to a problem and every step they which is both true and not true. Beauti- £ 22.89, US$ 44.99, EUR 33.63

The Official Damn Small Book I am very impressed … not just with this carry your entire com- DSL and also with the Shin- book, but also with Damn Small Linux puterized environment gledecker/Andrews/ Negus (DSL). With DSL, it seems you can do it around in your pocket. book. They really did pour their all. A ton of Live CDs are out there, so Damn Small Linux is collective heart and soul into why should you care about DSL? Be- fast – true to the origi- this book and it shows. cause it is more than just a Live CD that nal design, the CD that Whether you just want to try can be used to rescue cranky Windows ships with the book is out Linux, or want to explore boxes. First, like most Live CDs, DSL is a still only 50MB. You the true potential of an adapt- portable . But you also can run the whole able and lightweight Linux can configure DSL and save your thing directly from distro, get this book and give changes to either the computer’s hard RAM and forget about Damn Small Linux a whirl. drive or a portable medium, such as a the CD altogether. Breathe new life into floppy, a Zip drive, or a USB pen drive. that old Windows 98 box gathering dust Robert Shingledecker, John Andrews, Just save your config settings, including in your closet, create a lightweight web and Christopher Negus additional applications you added via server with XAMPP, use DSL as a music Paperback, 448 Pages MyDSL, and then have them reinstall au- server, and – if you really must – actu- Prentice Hall PTR, 2007 tomatically on the next boot. In fact, you ally do a traditional hard-drive install. ISBN-10: 0132338696 can save the OS and your additional set- Despite my early problems getting it ISBN-13: 978-0132338691 tings and extensions on a pen drive and to boot, I am singularly impressed with £ 19.66, US$ 39.99, EUR 28.19

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Linux Firewalls: Attack Detection and Response with iptables, psad, and fwsnort This is more than just a simple book ing psad, fwsnort (Snort), and fwknop. Information can be culled out of chap- about how to configure a Linux-based Each of these tools work in conjunction ters, or the book can be read as a com- firewall system. Michael Rash inter- with iptables to fill in the vital pieces of plete document. Rash maintains a web- weaves material from the psad, fwsnort, the security puzzle. site dedicated to this book at http:// and fwknop projects with iptables func- Port Scan Attack Detector (psad) is de- www. cipherdyne. org/ LinuxFirewalls/ tionality to produce a dynamic method scribed as a tool that analyzes iptables with supplemental material tailored for of constructing defenses against network log messages, with an eye each chapter as well as for attacks. This book assumes that the to detecting port scans or each utility described in reader has knowledge of general net- other intrusive network the text. The documenta- working principles, such as the OSI Ref- traffic, and incorporates tion provides information erence Model, and at least some back- Snort signatures to detect in key areas, such as refer- ground in network security. Some under- said probes for backdoor, ences, code examples, and standing of programming – particularly DDoS, and other threats. definitions. in Perl and C – is a bonus. Before fwsnort is covered, Linux Firewalls is a great The first four chapters of the book in- a chapter on translating book for anyone responsi- troduce iptables and traces the route this Snort rules into iptables ble for managing network tool takes in managing attacks and de- rules bridges earlier sec- security and with a back- fenses at different network layers (net- tions of the book to what is ground in open source. work, transport, and application). about to be presented, then Rash doesn’t use a “cookbook” ap- creates a bridge between psad and fw- Michael Rash proach that teaches you how to set up snort. Port Knocking vs. Single Packet Paperback, 352 Pages iptables from scratch; rather, he lays a Authorization (SPA) is discussed, and No Starch Press, 2007 foundation for the concepts and prac- fwknop (FireWall KNock Operator) is ISBN-10: 1593271417 tices that follow. The subsequent chap- introduced as a utility that implements ISBN-13: 978-1593271411 ters divide the book into areas address- the SPA authorization scheme. £ 22.89, US$ 49.99, EUR 33.63 the mathematics of humour

TWELVE Quirky Humans, Over Two Million Geeks around the world can’t be wrong! TWO Lovecraftian Horrors, COME JOIN THE INSANITY! ONE Acerbic A.I., ONE Fluffy Ball of Innocence and TEN Years of Archives EQUALS ONE Daily Cartoon that Covers the Geek Gestalt from zero to infinity!

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