Eurostar

The book I read to research this post was From the Footplate: Eurostar by Peter Waller which is an excellent book that I bought from a local secondhand bookstore. This book is quite succinct at around 110 pages and much of that is photos but what information there is, is quite interesting. It was also published in 1998 so some stuff might be a bit dated. The Eurostar was built by a French, Belgian and British consortium overseen by GEC-Alsthom with various contractors in the 3 countries. Much of the British work was done at Washwood Heath in Birmingham which I think also did work on the Pendolino's used by Virgin Rail for high speed cross country travel in Britain. The Eurostar is essentially a form of TGV but is one of the most technologically advanced trains in the world largely because it has to handle 3 sets of voltages in the 3 countries. The supply inside the Chunnel itself is 25 KV the same as in France. All 3 countries have intermediate towns for people not travelling to either London, Brussels or Paris. The 3 destinations it travels between. Of course in Europe there is an extensive TGV network. The intermediate stations are Ashford in Britain, Calais in France & Lille in Belgium. In Belgium & France they have built dedicated high speed line with the result it can go faster. In Britain various work has been done including a cross train train route through London for conventional trains and a new station called St. Pancras International for Eurostar passengers. Previously the trains left from Waterloo but the line overall the Eurostar travels on is slower than on the continent. I think when they upgrade the line for faster speeds the main consideration is allowing for the drivers reaction time to signals at these higher speeds. Obviously he has less time to react and they have to be placed further from where he must stop. The Eurostar cab has no side windows and the driver is centrally located to prevent him becoming disoriented by things passing by the side of him. This is especially the case in the Chunnel. The drivers also had to learn the routes and the systems used in the other 2 countries which was a steep learning curve. I really enjoyed this book and would wholeheartedly recommend it.

How To Secure Your Website From Hackers

The book I read to research this post was How To Secure Your Website From Hackers by Ashish Ghanti which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is about the various techniques hackers can use to damage your website but even more importantly how they can gain access to passwords and financial information via your website. The latter is the priority with most hackers and they will mostly not damage your website as such and try to hide their tracks and not get caught. Your website for a start must always require passwords before doing any functions and must require the exact URL. Many hackers don't know the exact URL and it's amazing how many this will trip up. Often they will do HTTP injecting where they enter the known part of the URL and an extension they think will take them to a part of the website that maybe is a database or stores credit card info. Another very frequent method is social engineering and another similar one is phishing where they try and get an employee to part with the password. You need to educate your staff to prevent this and in thinks like emails look at the language carefully and study the links. What this book doesn't say but is the case is nowadays they can use a genuine link that seems okay when you hover over it with the mouse but which uploads software onto your computer like malware and you best bet is enter the address manually into the address box. Ashish is from Nepal and is a blogger and SEO consultant. I think this book is well written although one problem is I think it says hacker not hackers in the title and I suppose English isn't his first language. The information on securing your website is good although the book is somewhat short. It does suggest using open source tools Nessus and Nmap to test the integrity of your site and I think I learned quite a lot from it. There is obviously a lot of information in the book I've not covered. I've just included it a taster. I think I recommend it.

Rockferry - Duffy

I am reviewing the album Rockferry by Duffy which is an excellent album. The album is soul and alternative music influenced and Duffy was the first Welsh lady to top the British singles chart since Bonnie Tyler with Total Eclipse Of The Heart in 1983. She was born in Bangor in North Wales in 1984 and her parents separated when she was 10. Apparently her stepfather's life was in danger and they had to live in a safe house for a while and she ran away to be with her father. Several members of her family wouldn't speak to her for years afterwards. Her father's partner had taken out a contract on her stepfather and as a result had to serve a prison sentence. She doesn't play any particular musical instrument. The best track is probably Mercy  but she also had a huge hit with Warwick Avenue. The latter was based on an experience in London when she struggled to make sense of the London Underground system. She won 3 Brit Awards & 1 Grammy for the work on this album. Adele cited her as a major influence in her acceptance speech at the 2009 Brit Awards. She did have an acting role in the 2010 film Patagonia and is currently taking a extended break from her work. The film is about someone journeying from Patagonia in Argentina to Wales. There is a huge Welsh community in Patagonia with many people still speaking Welsh there. This is one of my favorite albums and she did do a follow up album which wasn't as successful but still pretty good. She has a university degree in commercial art.

Meet The Vamps - The Vamps

I am reviewing the pop album Meet The Vamps by The Vamps which is a very good album. The Vamps are a new group who have recently achieved  quite a lot of success. Their debut single charted at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and was kept off the top by One Republic. Their follow up single reached number 3 in the UK Chart. Their album also charted at number 2 on the UK Album Chart and was kept off the top by Paolo Nutini. Two of the members met on You Tube and they subsequently met the 3rd on Facebook and met the 4th member through a mutual friend. They have released their 1st single in the States and very much used social media sites to get exposure and subsequently a recording contract. Their 2 singles were nominated for Best Singles at the World Music Awards. They have recorded a track with Demi Lovato whom they have also been a supporting act to at her concerts and it looks set to be their next single. They have also supported The Wanted. They are signed to Mercury Records and this album is better than I expected. Wild Heart is probably the best track on it and there is a good variety of different types of songs. It's probably not a classic album but is really good. There is a nice bit in the video to Wild Heart when someone is lying still made up to look like a corpse and it turns out he is merely sleeping off a wild party and just been done up to look that way for a joke. It's quite original. I think I would recommend this album and I am sure The Vamps are going to be huge.

Facebook For Business Owners

The book I read to research this post was Facebook For Business Owners by Tom Corson-Knowles which is a very good book that I bought from kindle. This is a fairly short book about running business and fan pages on Facebook and also advertising on there. If you run an advert it is cheaper if the link connects to another page with in Facebook and also the country of the customer is a major factor on the price of the ad. For example Mexico is much cheaper than the USA. It's probably better to advertise for sales rather than for fans or followers as Facebook ranks the page lower if you do that. If you start a business page and get 25 fans straight away Facebook gives you that URL name officially which is important as otherwise someone can take it. It's not just businesses either that have fan pages, many authors and charities do too. It is also possible to use an ecommerce plug in on your business or fan page like Payvement and many of these are free to set up and just pay a commision on sales. This book is well written and I did quite enjoy reading it. It's the kind of book that fires you up with enthusiasm to run a business on Facebook. All the Fortune 500 companies market themselves on Facebook and it is much more cost effective than conventional advertising. The author Tom is only 22 but a highly successful business man who has published quite a lot of books on Kindle. I think I'd recommend this book probably mostly to people considering marketing something like a business on Facebook.

Marketing

The book i read to research this post was Marketing: An Introduction by Philip Kotler et al which is a very good book which I bought from a car boot sale. This book was published in 1987 so for example doesn't contain anything about online advertising. It is a specially low priced book aimed at the student market and does a credible job of explaing the basics of marketing. Marketing is a lot more than simply selling stuff, as it encompasses things like pricing, customer care and after service, not to mention advertising and branding. An interesting example of how marketing could would was the merger of Dart & Kraft Foods in the early 80's where the latter wanted to diversify away from foods which could be a volatile market. Both companies had a wide range of products with Dart tending to do household products like superglue for example. They poured money into the lines that were profitable and saw there profits increase and the lines that weren't making money they sold. The latter happened to such an extent many questioned whether the merger was a good idea but the share price for Kraft went up 5 fold between 1982 and 1986. Many large companies have specialists in things like PR, advertising, branding as well as marketing and I think they are the kind of people who should read it. The book is almost 600 pages and while it is a bit dated is certainly interesting. I quite enjoyed reading it and if like me you see it being sold cheap is a good buy.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part C

This is the 3rd installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn doing the video training course by VTC on this software. I am going to be looking at dynamic connectors and flowcharts. Control + 3 is the shortcut for connector which does the dynamic connections. Alternatively you can use home/ connector. If you drag a connection to the outer part of a shape it will always be connected to that point even if you move it around. If you drag to the centre of the shape it will take the shortest route and the attachment point will move if the shape is moved. If you look in view/ autoconnect and tick the check box you will get the autoconnect feature and if the mouse cursor comes close to a shape arrows will appear to signify it can connect to that shape. You simply click on the arrow. The shape menu lets you click on a shape and if click home/ change shape it will change the shape but retain the properties like colour etc. Quick styles lets you change the properties to something pre defined and is also under home. If you click file/ new it takes you into the templates and predefined drawings including flow charts. Obviously there are more options for this in the professional version. You choose a predefined flow chart and then drag and drop the shapes on to the workspace. There is a design/ orientation command which can position the shape either landscape or portrait style. You usually click on a shape and then type to add text. Many of the flowcharts have their own tab when selected. The cross functional flowchart or swim lane flowchart on account of its similarity to swim lanes is a chart that shows who is responsible for what in addition to showing processes and each swim lane is labelled with the person's name and the person's tasks are placed in the relevant swim lane or column. In file/ new you can do a search for a particular flowchart in the search box. If you click on chart/ import the command is a wizard where you can either import data from something like a database or enter it manually. You locate the file and it tries to make sense of it automatically so if for example you do this with job titles it is important the titles aren't changed as it will look for matches.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part B

This is the 2nd installment in my blog post series on Visio 2013 based on what I learn from the video training course by VTC on this software. In this post we are going to look at shapes and text. You can align a shape with a certain position on the screen with the dynamic grid. You can also align a shape with another shape by dragging one of the points on the ruler to line up with the shape you are aligning to. By default when you align 2 shape a set distance from each other, the 3rd shape can be aligned the same distance from one of the shapes by a marker that appears when it is at the right distance. Right clicking a shape brings up a menu of common commands like cut and copy. Control + d duplicates a shape and does so without the need for the paste command. You simply drag and drop it. The pointer tool places connection points on the lines of a shape that can have a line connected to. If you glue the line to the point the line becomes dynamic moving with the shape. If you don't the line becomes static staying in one place even if the shape is moved. You can add text to a shape by simply single clicking the shape and typing text. If you double click it, it does the same but enlarges the shape so you can see what you are righting. The insert/ text box command inserts a holder for the text in the shape you select. The escape key gets you out of text edit mode. Insert/ line changes the line colour of the selected line and insert/ fill changes the fill colour of the selected shape. The home/ connector command adds a connector to a point. You hit escape to return to normal mode. Otherwise it keeps adding connectors. The command home/ pointer can be used to reposition text. Under home are also paragraph and text editing options. They are similar to in programs like word. You can drag and adjust the size of a text block with the mouse. The command home/ group objects groups several selected objects so they become as one. If you click insert/ online pictures there is various clip art and photos etc. Photos once inserted can be formatted like shapes. Under format are the formatting options like brightness and line weight that can be applied to a shape. You can use insert/ screen tip to customize a screen tip which appears when you hover over something with the mouse. There are some screen tips that appear by default and if you go into the screen tip command and delete the text in the screen tip text box it will delete the screen tip. If you go into the settings under file you can also turn screen tips on and off.

Signals and Systems

The book I read to research this post was Signals and Systems For Dummies by Mark Wickert which is quite a good book which I bought from kindle. I might be being a bit unfair on this book as in the intro it says you need knowledge of engineering and things like calculus to understand this book. I probably am not knowledgeable enough on these topics so most of it I didn't understand. What I did understand was interesting though. From what I understand of calculus the basic principle is x and y are related but variable amounts and you are given an equation which shows this. You draw a graph to show when x equals one amount, y equals another and this can be over an infinite scale. When you look at things like voltage and current you can see a similar relationship although it is quite a simple one. Some interesting things it says in the book are if you have 2 amplifiers set to the same frequency, they will cancel each other out. Also if you do a pop concert you may need a linear amplifier to take the vocals and music and broadcast it together without distortion. Of course some pop groups want distortion so use a non-linear amplifier. Another interesting thing is if you are doing a course in signals and systems, maybe as part of electrical engineering and it leads to an exam, there will normally be a few easy questions and it is a good idea to read the paper through and answer these questions first & it's amazing how many students over look this. I think this book is for students doing something like applied maths or physics and I am sure it would help them. I have to say like another book I read a while back, Physics For Dummies, both books aren't typical Dummies in being like anyone can read them, which seems a shame to me. Maybe an idea would be if Mark the author wrote a basic book explaining what you need to understand to grasp this book, that might be an idea. Maybe a Basic Signals and Systems For Dummies.

Raspberry Pi

The book I read to research this post was Programming The Raspberry Pi by Simon Monk which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. The Raspberry Pi is a low powered computer kit that can be used with various distributions of Linux in this book they use Wheazy. This book tells you about how to program your Raspberry Pi for various things using the Python programming language which is supported in Linux so no 3rd party software has to be installed to work with it. The Raspberry Pi is only around $35 and it will use a 2 GB SD card for storage and will work with any USB keyboard and most wireless ones. To work with wireless a 3rd party bit of hardware has to be added and a driver installed. Many people use there Raspberry Pi as a media center and it will work with the more rugged and more configurable Arduino to control stuff. Usually the Pi controls the Arduino and the latter is able to read things like voltages that the Pi can't. This book is only short and primarily an introduction to this topic but is well written. Often when you buy an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi they come in a kit form at a higher price but you get a load of stuff like a USB keyboard, a computer case and other accessories. They have both revolutionized home automation in particular and if you are tempted to write a script in Python before doing so see if their is a script available on the internet either free or to buy and may only need minor alteration. You will save yourself lots of work. I did quite enjoy reading this book and I think I would recommend it especially to people new to the subject.

A Lonely Place - Sam Smith

I am reviewing the album In A Lonely Place by Sam Smith which is an excellent album. Sam is the 3rd cousin of Lily Allen & Alfie Allen and has recently come to prominence as a British singer-songwriter in the last couple of years. He was born in London in 1992 and his mother was an investment banker with a huge salary. She did spend quite a bit of time focusing on Sam's career and did lose her job. She took the company to court for unfair dismissal but lost her case. Sam was first featured on a single by Disclosure which peaked at number 11 in Britain. He subsequently did the single with Naughty Boy which gave him his first British number 1. That is probably the best single on the album. His songs tend to be about unrequited love of which he has had his fair share apparently. He also suffers with OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder. Apparently he does things like check all the taps are turned off prior to leaving the house for fear of flooding. He has had some huge solo singles which are featured on the album and the Critics Choice Brit Award. I think he is the kind of popstar who looks like having a very successful career ahead of him.

Microsoft Visio 2013 Part A

This is the first installment in a blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. Visio comes in 2 versions, standard which does any kind of ordinary drawing but has less templates and professional which lets you link outside pages to your drawing and is a much more heavy duty version complete with a whopping 76 templates. For most people the standard version is fine but the version we are doing in these lessons is professional. Visio is a chart creating tool with drawing and some CAD abilities. Most of your designs will be done at least in part using the shapes and stencils templates. This program has a ribbon much like Microsoft Office 2007 but like 2010 has a back end where if you click File there is a menu but also a whole page of options including settings for setting up the program the way you want. Show/ Grid displays a grid which was shown by default in earlier versions and there is still rulers by default to help place work. If you right click the status bar you can select and deselect toolbars and whether they are shown. Pressing escape brings you back to the standard view although you may have to press it more than once. If you double click on what is being drawn it will fill the page. The stencils and shapes templates are on right of the screen and you can drag and drop these and there is an alignment point surrounding the template to help position it. There are diagonal points to help resize it. Some commands are context sensitive meaning they change according to what work you are doing. Live Preview if you hover over a button temporarily shows the results of pressing it. There is a zoom button complete with pop ups at the bottom of the screen. The one you will use most is zoom extents which shows the full drawing on the workspace.  Pressing the control+ shift + w keys is a short cut to zoom extents. The scroll button on the mouse moves you up and down the screen. If you select a shape with the mouse you can add text to it in a default way. Pressing the control button and using the scroll wheel zooms in and out. Pressing View/ Dynamic Grid turns the alignment line on a selected shape on and off. Finally pressing control + clicking shapes lets you select at one time. I will try and do a 2nd installment later on tonight.

Salesforce.com Part D

This is the 4th and last installment in my blog post series on Salesforce.com based on what I learn from the video training course by live lessons on this SaaS cloud product. I am first of all going to look at editing fields with in this program. You select Accounts/ New choose the type of record and then click save. You can attach an account to social media accounts and also your Chatter feed which is the virtual contact with in Salesforce.com. Edit Layout adds properties to the fields. The read only option displays a field with no editing possible. Normally you can edit a field by double clicking the pencil icon next to it. The recycle bin which prevents immediate loss of data unless emptied stores items for 15 days or until it becomes then auto-deletes. You can drag and drop fields to re-locate them. You can drag them off the screen to delete them. You can also drag and drop sections and fields from the toolbar. If you click the - symbol next to a field it's deleted. I am now going to look at e-mail. Salesforce.com only lets you e-mail contact which should be with in the database in this program anyway. You usually click the recipients name and then send email, then you fill in the fields and click send. There are carbon copy and blind carbon copy options. With the former they can see the other recipients but in the other they are hidden. There is a mass email button where you check or uncheck potential recipients. Apparently e-mails are most likely to be read on tuesday and wednesday mornings. To set a e-mail template click Set Up/ Communication Templates/ E-mail Templates. Fields in brackets auto fill with selected recipients personal details. They call these merge fields. Clicking Products displays the products and you can add products individually or more likely price books. You might have one for wholesale and one for retail. They also might have a minimum price book for sales people who can price something at their discretion but need a minimum price.

Salesforce.com Part C

This is the 3rd installment and continuation in my blog post series on Salesforce.com based on what I learn on the video training course by Live Lessons on this SaaS cloud product. Salesforce.com lets members of your company especially sales people and managers stay in touch. It integrates information so it is easily accessible to any member who needs it. If you look under Home/ Manage Users / Users you will find you can assign permissions to users. A word of caution keep the job titles relevant so that even in several years they still make sense. Different job titles have different permissions. There is also a Queque tab under Manage Users which prioritizes whose work is processed first. If you look in Personal/ Grant Log In Access you will see it grants permission to log in to users. There are various time periods access can be given over normally 1 month is the default. There is also a log in access for technical support for Salesforce.com staff as well as one for 3rd party companies who produce apps. Of course these are for to fix any problems and will normally have a 1 day limit depending on the job being done. If you are on a new computer and when you first sign up and activation e-mail is sent out with a code you must enter. If you log in from somewhere like Starbucks an activation code will be used each time you log on there and the IP address will have to be deleted afterwards. Otherwise it will be stored automatically. If you contact technical support you fill out a case file each time to let them know the problem and this is stored by them. Sales / App Exchange brings up apps which you can download. At the top of the page is also a search box for developers, apps etc. Developers tend to be cheaper than consulting partners who act as middlemen. The latter offer ongoing support for any problems where as developers only deal with that particular app. Developers charge from $50-$125 per hour. In the Salesforce.com help portal  is advice on training. Many of these are thousands of dollars and held as residential ones in lots of places. The classes which are greyed out are for premier support customers only.

Google Drive

The book I read to research this post was An Essential Guide To Google Drive by Murat Yilmaz which is a very good book which I downloaded for free from kindle. One quibble I do have is this book is rather but is very interesting nonetheless. Google Drive is a cloud computing service where you get 5 GB of free storage and pay for anything above that. It integrates with Google Docs which is similar to Microsoft Office and even lets you save in MS Office compatible files. It also contains a form builder by default and there are various other free apps like a map builder and floor plan designer. There is no save button in Google Docs as it saves every step immediately. In Google Drive itself there is various buttons pertaining to things like new folder etc. Going down the screen are opens for displaying files like recent for recently opened etc. You can save any kind of file in there and there are free apps that let you edit many of files like Pixlr which edits photos. I think Google Docs which is particularly suited for home use provides serious competition to Microsoft Office which charges a small monthly fee and OpenOffice which is also free. I did read somewhere else Google brings out several products every month and are one of the biggest technology firms in the world. Google Search is the most visited website in the world. A lot of their wealth though comes from Adsense & Adwords. I really enjoyed this book & I think it is a must have especially when it's free.

Building the Infrastructure For Cloud Security

The book I read to research this post was Building the Infrastructure For Cloud Security by Raghuram Yeluri et al which is an excellent book which I downloaded for free from kindle. This book is about the infrastructure and security that must be provided by Cloud Computing Providers. They are companies that rent out space on their servers to other companies or individuals and often will either provide it free or for a few dollars per month especially with small companies. Some big companies may pay a lot more and may even require an entire server or several servers. These data centers will typically cost around $200 million and have thousands or even millions of clients most of whom will be small companies. One issue is bandwidth and if one client has a lot of traffic will it affect other clients. One way around this is servicing 2 regions from the same data center so that when one region experiences heavy traffic the other region in another part of the world is relatively light. This only works for the biggest providers. Some cloud providers only work with linux while others give several options. Another issue is if one user uploads a virus or worm it can potentially attack other users at least on the same server. Intel have developed open attestation which as the name suggests is an open source standard program for dividing and protecting different clients. Of course things like anti virus and anti spyware software are even more crucial in this kind of situation. A lot of the security is provided by the Cloud Provider. This makes it more difficult but not impossible for potential criminals to hack companies servers due to the huge amount of financial clout these Cloud Providers have and can spend on security. A lot of businesses are starting to use virtualization like VMware. These help limit the damage a virus can do by limiting permissions assigned to that account to just what the user needs. I really enjoyed reading this book which is a decent length and quite informative. Some like me who don't specialize in Cloud security might find it a bit difficult to follow but it's still interesting.

Enterprise Storage

The book I read to research this post was Rethinking Enterprise Storage by Marc Farley which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. Note I think this book was free. It is also around 150 pages so is a reasonable length and Marc works for Microsoft so the book tends to be about Windows Azure Storage. Legally a company has to store things like e-mails in case of litigation and until recently many companies thought they were better off not using the cloud for this purpose and used either off-site servers or tape drives. A fairly recent development has been CiS or cloud integrated storage which is where storage software is provided as well as a cloud storage service and with broadband going forward with leaps and bounds with access speed it makes it a viable option. Cloud Computing is where instead of using a server and maybe software etc it is all provided over the internet so you have a virtual machine maintained and regularly upgraded by the cloud provider and merely have to access it on a machine at your company or home. Hybrid Company is even newer and is where maybe software is provided and you can run that your machine in your workplace and that works in conjunction with the cloud service so the might provide storage etc. It's worth noting often versions of these cloud services are provided in a basic version free of charge with a premium version you can upgrade to and pay for. So you can save a lot of money. This book tells you all about the Microsoft products although I think it's a shame it doesn't give you some idea how it compares to Amazon Web Services and what they offer. Also some like healthcare providers might find this kind of service unsuitable as they have to follow more stringent guidelines about things like information disclosure and could be sued if they use a cloud service that might not have to follow the same strict rules. The rules aren't as strict for companies. I did really enjoy this book and think it is well written. Finally the book does delve a little into all the data collected on social media sites like Facebook and how that is potentially providing companies with huge amounts of data about there products which is still in its infancy but the marketing opportunities for companies are huge.

3D Printing

The book I read to research this post was 3D Printing An Introduction by Michael Wiechert which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is only intended as a brief introduction to what is quite a complex subject. This is a very new technology and 3D Printers start from $500 but are coming down in price all the time. The smallest ones are the size of a microwave oven but I have seen a handheld one. They normally only work with one material but are revolutionizing the field of design and building a prototype of something which can be done at a fraction of the price where previously machines had to be specially built to manufacture each part. We are a long way off seeing the replicators that can manufacture and copy anything like in Star Trek. There are very expensive ones though that work with things like living tissue and titanium. If possible you are better off buying something from a shop than 3D printing it as it is much cheaper and requires a lot of work to design it. Some people who design things in this way use programs like AutoCAD & Photoshop depending on what they are printing but there are many ready done designs you can use as well as 3D Scanners which simplify the process but are also expensive. If you use software to do 3D printing there is a lot to learn which puts many off. There are also software plug ins required like 123D. This is a very interesting book and this is probably something that will become more and more mainstream as time goes on. I did really enjoy this book.

Ethical Hacking

The book I read to research this post was Ethical Hacking Secrets Guide by Govind Parihar which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is a kind of manual to an educational course in ethical hacking that takes you through it step by step. It's ideal for people new to the subject and is fairly easy to follow. Govind teaches a course in this subject. There is good advice for people trying to secure their computers against attack like using specialist dictionaries like star wars ones to come up with secure but memorable passwords. The book is primarily for pen testers who are paid to try and hack a computer network and tests its secureness. It tells you all about your options regarding tools. One of the best is lophtcrack which looks for clues to try and enable you to crack the password. It tells you all about the legal aspects and how someone can't be prosecuted for a hacking crime unless they can prove that person knew he was trespassing on a network he wasn't supposed to. Some hackers say they are doing it for educational means but it causes a lot of trouble for the system administrator who can only assume the hacker is malevolent. The book is a decent length but the writing on each page tends to be quite brief. I did really enjoy reading this book which helps make a difficult subject readable. Some hackers cause damage by using low level languages like python and C to create huge files to flood a network called a denial of service attack. Higher level languages check file sizes. Most viruses are written in java and many computers use a java sandbox which limits the virus to a small area on a computer where it can't do any damage. Some viruses use active x controls which can't be limited in this way. This idea of limiting what something can do on a computer is often referred to as virtualization. This is becoming very big especially in business computing.

Warfare At Sea

The book I read to research this post was Warfare At Sea edited by Peter Darman which is a very good book which I bought at a car boot sale. This book was published in 1997 so you might see it for sale secondhand and I think is probably a good buy. It looks at the various technologies used by the major navies around the world. Stuff like Exocet missiles which were responsible for causing the Royal Navy problems during the Falklands War. They went on to become one of the top selling surface to surface missiles due to their effectiveness. Also it looks at things like the Super Aircraft Carriers like USS Nimitz & SSN Submarines which were so expensive only five countries had the latter in their navies. This book came probably before China started to emerge as a potential superpower. In fact in 1991 she only had 4 SSN's. It also looks at Trident and Polaris and how Britain replaced the ailing rocket motors on her Polaris missiles in order to keep them in service although has since purchased Trident. It looks at the amphibious assault ships like HMS Fearless which are designed for landing troops and equipment complete with helipad although rather ugly to look at. Obviously priority goes on it being functional. Apparently a Trident submarine in one missile can deliver more kilotons of damage than was dropped on Kuwait & Iraq during the First Gulf War & the payload of the submarine in total is more deadly than the total bombing of World War 2, Korean War & Vietnam War combined. One thing that concerns the various navies is the airspace will be saturated with missiles in a time of war that will overwhelm there defences so that whatever they do some will get through. Something that will partly deflect this is the ability of the ships to fire chaff to confuse the missiles incoming. I really enjoyed this book which is quite interesting and if I had to pick a fault it would be it is somewhat short at only around 90 pages. The technology in the book is quite fascinating.

Thrive

The book I am reviewing is Thrive by Arianna Huffington which is a very good book which I bought on kindle. This book is semi-autobiographical and Arianna is famous for creating the Huffington Post which started out as a current affairs blog and she got lots of guest writer's to write posts often for a relatively small fee but the site became extremely and nowadays it is seen as quite an honor to write a post for them and can increase traffic to your blog quite considerably. Prior to writing this book she had been working all hours and getting little sleep mainly because they were trying to launch international versions of the Huffington Post in countries like Germany, Canada & South Korea. She subsequently had to do a talk for graduating students at a college which she takes very seriously on account of having children herself at college and it made her question if she was right to be working all hours and she subsequently sold the Huffington Post and has written this book about her attempts to get her life back on track and some of the techniques she used. She does talk about women traditionally have lived longer than men and with competition in the workplace and more in general being expected from women, this gap is narrowing all the time. You have to find a balance between work and what matters in your life and rest and relaxation. It's no accident the current epidemic of hyperactivity and ADHD among children and in general they get 1 hour less sleep every night and we put them under more and more pressure to be productive in their waking hours. This means they have less time to wind down before bedtime and they are less likely to get enough deep or REM sleep a major factor in ADHD. She does write about a lot of the things she finds has helped her relax and sleep, things like no caffeine after 2pm, keeping your bedroom cool and darker and in general pampering yourself a little so your subconscious knows you are preparing to go to bed. Another thing she mentions is the abuse of technology where people repeatedly check their e-mail and social media accounts and often don't have many proper friends because they spend so much time on sites like Facebook and Twitter with their followers. It is a really good book that I quite enjoyed.

The Internet Underground

The book I read to research this post was The beginners Guide To The Internet Underground by Jeremy Martin which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. This book encompasses all the dark side of the internet like the darknet, hacking and internet anonymity in general. There is a legitimate side to all this in that people living in oppressive regimes might want to hide their internet activity and might want unbiased news. There is something called the onion ring or tor browser that helps keep you anonymous and can be found at thetorproject.org. There are also live operating systems that run from a cd and don't leave any trace even on the local hard drive. Two of these are Whoix & Tail OS. On the daker side you can find almost anything imagineable on the darknet sites even assassination services that can be purchased with anonymous bit coins and the author does recommend reporting anything dodgy you come across even if only to keep yourself out of trouble with law enforcement. Probably the most well known darknet storefront is at The Silk Road at http://silkroad6ownowfk.onion. This has cleaned up its act a bit recently to avoid being shut so there are much dodgier sites. There is a website at www.portableapps.com that lets you set up your own darknet storefront. I've only included this stuff for information purposes and there are far more sites in the book. Many of the darknet sites use the onion extension and of course they aren't indexed by Google etc. I think these kind of books are worth reading if only to keep you safe from things like identity theft on the internet. It does go into hacking and how practically every political or terrorist group has its own hackers. Sometimes hackers just leave a message on websites saying you need to upgrade your security and other times of course it's a lot more sinister. Nobody knows how much money is lost through companies being hacked and often they are reluctant to report it for fear of bad publicity. I really enjoyed reading this book and found it really interesting.

This Machine Kills Secrets

The book I read to research this post was This Machine Kills Secrets which is one of the best books I have read connected to computing and which I bought from a local bookstore. This book is about the emergence of websites like Wikileaks and how hackers and cypherpunks have released lots of secret information into the public domain. Even the Russian Mafia haven't been safe from these disclosures which have been on a worldwide scale. Julian Assange one of the founders of Wikileaks is one of the best hackers in the world and prior to running that website which was at least partly responsible for the Arab Spring Revolutions and has apparently hacked many computers in his pursuit of secret information. A lot of what hackers do is mostly social engineering where they phone an organisation's help desk and try to get them to disclose passwords and other information. Wikileaks for example released that the US State Department disliked the President of Tunisia and probably wouldn't support him. For people in countries with totalitarian regimes visiting sites like Wikileaks is vital for them to know what is going on but risky as they can be taken away and tortured. The Tor browser was vital for these people as on most sites it hid your IP address and location and there are volunteers who contribute their IP address and locations to be used as a mask. Another important thing was the release as open source of PGP or pretty good privacy which allowed files to be encrypted in a way that was mostly secure. Another protocol worked by having a kind of false layer where you could give an alternate key and there would appear an apparently innocent designed to fool interrogators in totalitarian regimes who might torture someone for the key to his encryption. I really enjoyed reading this book which also looks at the problems faced by websites like Wikileaks like companies like the Bank of America & Paypal refusing to process donations being sent to them effectively cutting off most of their funding. Also some people who passed on information to Wikileaks have been prosecuted for various reasons or are awaiting trial. Wikileaks itself was hacked and all it's files were placed on Pirate Bay a file sharing site in a downloadable form because someone failed to use a secure enough password.

Android Tablets

The book I read to research this post was Android Tablets For Dummies by Dan Gookin which is a very good book which I bought on kindle. This book looks at the manner different types of Android tablet and describes some of the differences. Android is the most popular operating system for tablet or smart-phone. Google bought a company called Android that more or less had developed this operating system although they have since added to it. It is based around Linux which many think is superior in many ways to Windows. Like Linux there is a whole community developing software and apps for these often free of charge. At the time this book came out there was a social media app that was included and was integral to the operating system but with apps like Twitter & Facebook they were free downloads but they could be included in later versions. Some Android tablets require you to set up a Google account in the initial set up, others require you to download the latest version of Android and others merely require that you connect to a wireless network. There has been some controversy over very cheap Android tablets with limited features and I think you are better off getting a decent model if only so most apps are compatible with it. Some apps only work with certain models like the Nexus 7 and I think if there is a specific for dummies book on your model of Android tablet you are probably better off getting that. I think Dan has authored quite a few similar for dummies books to this on various Android devices among others. I really enjoyed reading this book and think it might even be of interest if you want something to keep you abreast of the latest technology which is mainly why I read it. The documentation that comes with Android tablets is generally poor and this book also fulfills a need there. Generally speaking I find the for dummies books helpful and they do present information in a light-hearted and easy to understand manner.

Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part L

This is the 12th and last installment in my blog post series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 which is based on what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. If you want to create a blend from one shape to another choose Object/Blend/Make & you also have the option of Object/Blend/Options, which is more configurable. You can specify how many steps it should take and this has applications in animation in Flash Movies where you export to Flash but we won't cover that here. The Mesh tool can create a kind of 3d type gradient usually in white when applied to a shape. It uses complicated algorithms to achieve this. The steps are you select the Mesh tool, then the color & then where you want it applied. You can shift click and apply the mesh effect to more than one area at once. The Save For Web option is to optimize a page for the web or for a program like Powerpoint. As part of the process it compresses the file and shows a preview so you can see if the quality is degraded. A web page will usually use RGB color. Commercial printing requires CMYK color. As part of the process in optimizing your page you choose a filetype. GIF is likely to be phased out soon in favor of PNG-8 and both have a transparency option but it is a matter of the web browsers supporting it. You can reduce the colors especially where a drawing is predominantly solid colors. You click save when finished. If it is a photo or photo-like you normally use JPEG although it doesn't have a transparent option so normally you will choose white or black instead. PNG-24 is lossless and keeps the quality but does reduce the file size although not to the same extent as other file types. If you save something as a PDF you choose Save As and select PDF from the file type. To print something you will usually double click the artboard tool and configure the various options. That brings us to the end of this series and I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part K

This is the 11th installment in my blog post series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 which is based on what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on that software. The effects with in Illustrator are split between Photoshop effects & Illustrator effects with the former working with imported photos although the latter won't work. The feature clipping mask can be found at Object/Clipping Mask/Make, and it protects part of an image although is on a separate layer. You have to convert photos into vector images to edit them. You can use clipping masks with text and simply enter the text then select it and convert it. Generally you can apply a gaussian blur to something to make it blurred but it doesn't with the clipping mask because it is vector based so always has sharp edges. You have to use the opacity mask with in the transparency palette. Only one item at a time can be used as a clipping mask. If you group several objects and try to apply a clipping mask it is only applied to the last selected object. The way around this is to group them, then select Object/Compound Path/Make, and make it into a compound path then apply the clipping mask. Photography on an experimental level is going vector based and when you think of it a photo isn't that different to a picture. Future versions of photo-editing software will probably be vector based. You can use auto trace on your toolbar near the top to trace a photo and use the auto color option to include the color. This is called live trace. There is also some advanced options. Image trace converts the photo into a sketch and you can use live color to paint it. To convert it to a live paint compatible picture choose Object/Live Paint/Make . To close the shapes so you can paint them like when the lines are too faint to register choose Object/Live Paint/Gap. The next installment which I'll do later today will be the last in the series.

The New Google Underground

The book I read to research this post was The New Google Underground by Marc Charles which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book makes the mind boggle with all its ideas on how to make money online. Apparently lots of people are writing books and e-books on internet marketing but things are moving so fast that many of these publications are getting out of date. This book is a wealth of information and much of it is about using mini websites typically less than 10 pages to sell a product per site. Many of these sites can be set up free if you don't mind compulsory adverts. Another good idea is reviewing books on sites like Amazon as an affiliate and getting commission for selling them. This includes best sellers. There is also pay per click sites like Google Adsense & Ask.com where you bid for search terms and your ad appears when someone does a search for that term. There are also flat rate PPC sites like Exact Seek & Tygo. There are also second tier and cheaper PPC's which can be as little as a 1/10 cent per search term per click. Try Look Smart, Go Click & Epilot.  Google typically introduces 4 new products or services per month which includes Orkut, Google + &  Blog Search. You can try putting a relevant article in an e-zine which can drive some serious traffic although normally they want a unique article. Try these e-zine directories http://www.ezine-dir.com & ezinelisting.com. There is also last minute remnant advertising a cable and satellite tv one is http://advertisingconnection.com. Some newspaper remnant ads are at http://www.usnewspapers.com. You can get e-zine remnants at http://marksmalley.com. There are absolutely loads of resources like these in the book.  There is also newswire services like http://www.ereleases.com, http://www.businesswire.com & one I use is http://copromote.com. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I think it is one of the best books I've read on this topic.

Business Networking

The book I read to research this post was Business Networking For Dummies by Stefan Thomas which is a very good book which I bought on kindle. This book is about the kind of networking that is giving talks as well as doing it online mostly via social media. This book has lots of advice and ideas on getting opportunities to promote your business, and also helps you develop your presentation style. One thing it suggests is finding people in different fields via may be classified ads as well as word of mouth that you can pass on recommendations for them doing jobs in exchange for them doing the same for you. If you are doing online promotion at the very least you need to join Twitter, Facebook, Google + & Linkedin. You in particular need to find people in your locality and or similar profession and contact them. With people in your locality he suggests having a cup of coffee with them and you don't necessarily need to expect an immediate sale. You may need to build a relationship first and even if they don't buy anything they might give you a referral. There is a free business forum at www.4networking.biz/forum where business people can talk to each other and bear in mind to really grow your business you may need to give free advice and a lot of people rather than do it themselves will pay you to do it. You will also get regarded as an expert in your field. Another fairly recent phenomenon is speed business networking which works similar to speed dating in that you get 1 minute with each person to talk to them and can maybe exchange business cards before moving on to someone else. There is also business networking where you can give a talk to an audience. Often they all have a meal and he warns doing use slides if it is only a short presentation as it is likely be distracting and if the computer decides to act up it can ruin any chance of doing your presentation. This is an interesting book and I found the advice and suggestions quite exciting and certainly I intend to implement some of them.

Samsung Galaxy S5

The book I read to research this post was Samsung Galaxy s5: The Unofficial Galaxy S5 User Guide by Daniel Forrester ywhich is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book tells you all about the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone which is probably the best on the market at the moment. It features a 2 MP front camera and a 13 MP rear camera. It's an android operating system but takes it to new limits with things like a universal remote control compatible with a wide variety of electronic consumer goods and a Google account for things like email and Google Drive is a requirement but is simple enough to set up. It features widgets and apps and widgets run continously with maybe extras that can be activated but apps have to be started for you to use. It features a pedometer and heart monitor. It has some of the older features we are used to like face recognition and retina display.You can use the screen without actually touching the screen although that may take a bit of getting used and you can hold your finger a little above the screen. It integrates with social media especially Google + where it is quite simple to have a hang out or video conference call. There is an onscreen keyboard. There are apps specifically for this phone for email and internet although it does have Gmail & Chrome as well. It has a dedicated GPS antenna for improved reception for this. It helps you triangulate where you are better. It has a proximity sensor for detecting compatible devices and networks and there will be USB devices you can connect to it. It has special powering down modes to save power which allow to still function but for example give a black and white display to save power. This is a very interesting and easy to follow book and because this phone is so new there aren't many books about it but I daresay that will change as time goes on.