The appeal of do-it-yourself chemistry has always been one of the most potent recruiting tools science has to offer. From the 1930s through the 1960s, chemistry sets were among the most popular Christmas gifts, selling in the millions. But in 2008, they are a dying breed. DIY hobbyists, students, and science buffs can now turn to Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture for hands-on instruction to build their own chemistry sets at home — safely and responsibly.

“The decline of chemistry sets has had nothing to do with lack of interest,” explains author Robert Bruce Thompson. “Kids are as enthusiastic as ever, but manufacturers and retailers have become more concerned about liability and lawsuits — and schools are now devoting little time and few resources to science. This guide is meant to celebrate the magic of chemistry — while taking responsible precautions to minimize or eliminate potential risks.”

No chemistry set on the market today provides more than a bare start on essential equipment and chemicals. All of the elements needed to create your own are readily available and surprisingly inexpensive — and the Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments shows you how to get started. This unique, easy-to-use handbook provides step-by-step instructions, outlining how to:

• Select and buy the proper equipment for your home chemistry lab
• Practice laboratory safety
• Master your laboratory skills
• Conduct 17 hands-on laboratory experiments

Administering Microsoft’s server-oriented Windows operating systems can sometimes seem like living on the edge of river that’s prone to flooding. You ford the effluvia after each new flood, picking through the detritus for what’s worth keeping, and leaving the useless bits lying in the muck. Then, when you have everything shipshape again, the next new release comes along. System administrators find themselves grappling with new concepts and just when they’ve mastered one set of changes, another comes along and suddenly they’re scrambling once again to get up to speed.

One source of help for the beleaguered system administrator has always been the technical book market; each major operating system release has always been accompanied by books written to support it. But Jonathan Hassell, author of Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide, reflects on an interesting phenomenon: “Over the years, many of these books have become as complex, and have accumulated as much detritus, as the operating systems they explain,” he says. Bookstores are filled with 1200-plus page volumes that lead you through how things worked in the last four versions of the operating system. And Hassell’s belief is that you don’t need all that information to get your work done effectively.

“It was in this spirit that I set out to write Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide, he says. “I have trimmed the content of this volume to include just enough background on a subject for you to understand how different features and systems work in this version of Windows. I want you to come away from reading sections with a firm understanding of what’s happening under the hood of the system, but without the sense that you’re taking a graduate course in OS theory.” Most of all, he has written the book to be a practical guide that helps sys admins get their jobs done: “here’s how it works; here’s how to do it.”

The book offers step-by-step procedures for using all of the major components of Windows Server 2008, along with discussions on complex concepts such as Active Directory replication, DFS namespaces and replication, network access protection, the Server Core edition, Windows PowerShell, server clustering, and more. Simply put, this is the most thorough reference available for Windows Server 2008, with complete guides to:

• Installing the server in a variety of different environments
• File services and the Windows permission structure
• How the domain name system (DNS) works
• Active Directory, including its logical and physical structure, hierarchical components, scalability, and replication
• Group Policy’s structure and operation
• Managing security policy with predefined templates and customized policy plans
• Architectural improvements, new features, and daily administration of IIS 7
• Terminal Services from both the administrator’s user’s point of view
• Networking architecture including DNS, DHCP, VPN, RADIUS server, IAS, and IPSec
• Windows clustering services — applications, grouping machines, capacity and network planning, user account management
• Windows PowerShell scripting and command-line technology

When Google lifted traditional office applications into its “cloud” of fast network connections, powerful servers, and seemingly limitless storage, it changed the way many of us create, organize, and share information — and even write books.

In fact, a timely new title from O’Reilly, Google Apps Hacks: Tips & Hacks for Unlocking the Power of Google Applications was drafted and edited in the cloud. With an ocean and several time zones separating German author Philipp Lenssen and his O’Reilly editor, they turned to the Google apps suite to write and revise this highly anticipated new book.

“My editor, Brian Jepson, and I wrote it using the Google Docs document editor,” explains Lenssen, who runs Google Blogoscoped, a daily news source covering all things Google. “This editor allows sharing, so when I finished a page in draft mode, I would invite Brian to the document. When Brian finished the changes, it was my turn again to use the Google document editor revision tool to highlight changes. All in all this process was great fun.”

Even better, “We didn’t need to send around any attachments, and there were no questions like ‘Do you have the latest version of Word installed?’ As long as the other party has a recent browser, like Firefox or Internet Explorer, the online ‘operating system’ can start-up,” adds Lenssen.

The resulting new resource illuminates Lenssen’s ingenious methods to push Google Apps to the limit. His up-to-the-minute collection of hacks and workarounds offers you Google’s web-based office applications for email, calendars, spreadsheets, word processing, and presentations, as well as its desktop applications, including Google Earth and SketchUp, the 3D drawing tool.

Clearly illustrated and easy-to-understand, Lenssen’s new book shows you how to create and share all kinds of documents with these applications, along with interesting ways to mash them up — like embedding web pages into Google Calendar, putting Picasa photos on a map, and more. You’ll get much more than the obvious out of Google Apps, including:

• Google Documents: Share and edit documents via the Web
• Google Spreadsheets: Add real-time data to spreadsheets; generate charts and tables for web pages
• Google Presentations: View them on a mobile phone and save them as video
• Gmail: Send email to and from a mobile phone, adjust Gmail’s layout with a style sheet, and more
• iGoogle: Create your own gadgets, program a screenscraper, and add Flash games
• Google Calendar: Add web content events, public calendars, and your Outlook Calendar
• Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google SketchUp: Tinker with Google’s desktop apps
• Picasa, YouTube, and Google Video: Customize the media management apps
• Page Creator, Blogger, and Google Analytics: Create simple websites with nothing but Google tools

“The hacks in Google Apps Hacks are categorized into three difficulty levels: easy, intermediate, and expert. People not familiar with programming can skip all programming-related hacks, for instance. On the other hand, people already familiar with how to use Google apps can skip the introduction to each of the 12 chapters,” adds Lenssen. “I hope the book will be helpful to anyone trying to get more out of Google than just search.”

Yago wants to use his computer skills to earn extra cash to help his family, but something goes horribly wrong. His teacher, the greatest hacker in the country, is imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and an innocent girl is blackmailed. So begin the adventures in Hackerteen.

Written by Marcel Marques and the Hackerteen Team, Hackerteen: Internet Blackout, Volume 1 is O’Reilly’s first graphic novel written for young readers. By following the exploits of Yago and friends, readers learn about basic computing and Internet topics, including the potential for victimization. The book is also ideal for parents and teachers who want their children and students to understand the risks of using the Internet and the proper ways to behave online.

For young people, the Internet is amazing because it opens up new worlds, but not all of them are safe. While kids are communicating online with their friends, they could be leaving themselves open to viruses, identify theft, and all the creeps on the Web. They need to know what they’re doing and, more important, what other people could be up to.

Readers will follow Yago and his hacker buddies in their fight against the bad guys of the Internet world, and will learn

• How Internet technologies work
• How some people try to hurt others online
• Key ways to protect oneself online
• How people can work together on the Internet to make the world a better place

In the real world, Hackerteen is an educational project in Brazil that teaches adolescents about computer network security, entrepreneurship on the Internet, and hacker ethics. Its innovative methods include challenges, games, RPGs, Linux, and comics. Three growing social problems provided the motivation for establishing Hackerteen:

1. Excessive time spent by young people surfing and playing computer games on the Internet
2. Young people committing digital crimes on the Internet or being blackmailed
3. A growing lack of professionals who work with networks and computer security.

Facebook, the stratospherically popular social networking site, combines the best of blogs, online forums, photo sharing, and playful applications, to help people connect with their friends who work, study, and live around them. No longer just for college kids and with more than one million flocking to Facebook every week, this rapidly expanding communications hub now attracts grownups of all ages from Gen-Xers to boomers and beyond. Yet one of the few things this site doesn’t have is a printed users guide.

That is, until now. O’Reilly Media’s latest publication, Facebook: The Missing Manual by E. A. Vander Veer, provides the crystal clear guidance and entertaining overview that those new to social networking need. This timely new book makes it possible for folks to embrace everything Facebook offers — from sharing interests or vacation photos to building new professional relationships, while remaining in touch with old friends.

“Fads come and go, and I’m not easily impressed,” says Vander Veer. “But what Facebook does under the covers astonishes me. If readers have a clear idea of what they want from the site and are careful about protecting their privacy, they can get an enormous amount of benefit from Facebook.”

Indeed, now Vander Veer is a Facebook fan. “I’m a Luddite by nature, and never expected to get caught up in Facebook on a personal level — but that’s exactly what happened. A mom’s group I was involved in needed a new online ‘home.’ There were other sites I could have used, but I figured administering the group on Facebook would put the site through its paces. I was actually shocked by how useful the site is for keeping up with a lot of geographically-linked members!”

The book is packed with high-quality color graphics on every page and provides easy-to-grasp help with specific Facebook tasks. Readers learn about signing up, networking, shopping, joining groups, finding or filling a job, sharing a virtual hug, playing a game, and a whole lot more. In addition to the getting-started tips, Vander Veer offers step-by-step instructions for customizing the privacy of the information you put on the site.

With Facebook: The Missing Manual, readers learn how to:

• Join a network, based on where they went to school, where they live, or who they work with
• Look up old friends, find new ones, and decide whom they’d like to keep track of
• Contact members by virtually poking them, or leaving notes on their message boards
• Get automatic updates from Facebook friends and send updates of their own
• Participate in groups of particular interest and meet up with members face-to-face
• Buy and sell using Facebook’s marketplace and classified ads
• Find a job or hire employees by combing through the member pool
• Use Facebook as a collaboration tool to keep team members, co-workers, clients, and projects up to date
• Play it safe by using a multi-pronged approach to ensuring your privacy

Think of Facebook as a 50-million-plus-entry searchable Rolodex. With the useful guidance from this vital new resource, readers get a clear picture of how they can use it to make their lives better — and a little more fun!

Windows Vista contains so many quirks, unaccountable behaviors, and confounding features that it almost seems to have been designed to vex its users. Unfortunately, as most Vista users are already dealing with job demands, impending deadlines, and assorted miscellaneous interruptions, they have little patience left for operating system foibles. The situation tends to make them annoyed.

But author David Karp has a different take. “Why suffer when you can take matters into your own hands?” he asks. Karp has a rare talent for helping cranky computer users become serene. His books have been alleviating the annoyances of computer users for many years, and his latest, Windows Vista Annoyances, may be the timeliest of his works to date.

The book offers a wide-ranging collection of solutions, hacks, and time-saving tips for working around the most irritating features and getting Vista to do much more than Microsoft intended. The book helps you to:

• Customize Windows Explorer, the desktop, Start menu, and Search tool to be less annoying and more useful
• Explore, hack, and manage Vista’s Registry
• Enhance your experience with videos, photos, and music
• Speed up your PC and improve performance, including the hard disk and Vista’s Glass interface
• Troubleshoot Vista when it won’t start, won’t add new hardware, or when it crashes applications
• Get your local network running, make your wireless work, and improve your web and email experience
• Protect your privacy and data with permissions, encryptions, and user account management
• Automate Vista with scripts, Command Prompt batch files, Task Scheduler, and the Windows PowerShell

“To use Windows Vista is to be annoyed — and this book is the best way to solve any annoyances you come across,” says Preston Gralla, author of Windows Vista in a Nutshell and Big Book of Windows Hacks, and a contributing editor to Computerworld. “Whether you want to speed up how long it takes Vista to load, power up Vista Search, or customize the supremely annoying User Account Control, you’ll find something in here to help. It’s the most comprehensive and entertaining guide you can get for turning Vista into an operating system that’s a pleasure to use.”

We all know someone who, like Oklahoma’s Ado Annie, just “cain’t say no.” These folks accept every project. Every volunteer job. While everyone around them loves and appreciates them (or not), they’re often tired and do little for themselves. Some people who fall into this group may not even realize they’re on automated mode when agreeing to help.

The Book of No contains 250 scenarios and how to handle them so that you say no. Before the entering the bulk of the book that contains the scenarios, Newman covers five basics to get you started with this No business as well as a 16-point No Credo to remind you that you have the right to say no. Saying no is a learned skill, and the scenarios can help the yes-person develop the courage to say no.

Each scenario poses a question or statement followed by three parts:

• What’s going on here? — Explains the situation and possible motives.
• Response — How to respond so the answer ends in a No.
• Alert — A warning to help you the next time you get into the situation or contains insight so you better understand what’s going on.

A person who has the courage to say no may feel terrible and guilty afterward. The scenarios don’t simply advise saying no, but instead provide honest and guilt-free responses. For example, someone at work asks if you’re available for lunch on certain days. The response, “Thanks for including me, but I can’t squeeze another thing into my crammed schedule this week.”

The scenarios are grouped into four areas for quick referencing: friends, family, work, and difficult people, which include situations with sales people and those who provide services.

The book concludes with a bulleted list of key lessons to provide reinforcement to keep you focused on the road to accomplishing more of what you want and less of what others want. The brief introduction and conclusion with the well-sorted scenarios in between make the book a great tool for people who need support in their journey to say no.

The celestial bodies have been a source of mystery and wonder for centuries — but with high-powered telescopes now priced under $250, the study of the stars is within reach for anyone. Ready to get started? The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders is the perfect guide for novice astronomers.

“We wish this book was available years ago, when we started observing the night sky,” explains co-author Robert Bruce Thompson. “Instead, we were on our own addressing the same two problems that every amateur astronomer faces: which objects to observe and how to find them.” Thompson and his wife Barbara Fritchman Thompson have co-authored books including Astronomy Hacks, Building the Perfect PC, and PC Hardware in a Nutshell. As co-founders of the Winston-Salem Astronomical League, they are both currently pursuing Astronomical League Master Observer certificates.

The easy-to-use Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders includes a complete illustrated constellation guide along with comprehensive charts and diagrams. You will learn:

• How to choose, buy, and use the proper equipment
• How to read star charts and locate objects in the night sky
• Which objects to look for in 50 constellations every night of the year
• How to find those objects and what they look like

Arriving in bookstores by November 19th and available online today at store.makezine.com, The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders can carry novice observers to intermediate or advanced status. Unlike other beginner guides which are quickly outgrown with short object lists, this compilation includes nearly 400 double and multiple stars, star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. Even observing every clear, dark night, it will take stargazers one to three years to observe all of the recommended targets.

Tags: astronomy, star, astronomer

Is your dreary office cubicle in need of some spice? If so, a new book, Eccentric Cubicle, has your much-needed remedies. Featuring zany and interesting ways to pump some fun into your workspace, Eccentric Cubicle will improve your building and creative skills, while quickly turning your cubicle into an office hot spot. Author Kaden Harris — the unconventional mind behind Eccentric Genius — takes aspiring and die-hard do-it-yourselfers through a highly entertaining gamut of workplace-oriented projects. From desktop guillotines and crossbows to mood-enhancing effects and music makers, these interesting builds combine a wide spectrum of basic shop techniques, alternative materials and designs that are guaranteed to bring some fun into any office environment.

Specific projects include:

• Active Desktop: Over-engineered and cunningly executed, this postmillennial version of the classic French revolutionary guillotine is the last word in cigar accessories. Or desktop snack choppers.
• BallistaMail: This Greco-Roman missile (good for launching spears, javelins, and the occasional boulder) scales down to an intimidatingly powerful interoffice mail delivery system. Your memos will never be ignored again!
• Maple Mike: Because golfing is a stepping stone to boardroom success, make your own desktop simulation of the perfect golf swing in one easy-to-use/easy-to-build project.
• Haze-o-Matic 3000: Bring the “fog of war” to your contract negotiations. Build a mechanism that’s as inherently cool as a fog machine and mystify your co-workers!
• The Gysin Device: Harness your subconscious for enhanced creativity with this lucid dream induction device — all from the comfort of your own cubicle! Sitar not included.

Eccentric Cubicle offers far more than a collection of project “how-tos.” Filled with oblique industrial design, fabrication philosophies and sardonic social commentary, Eccentric Cubicle offers the reader encouragement to adapt, modify, and hack their way through their builds. “The book’s overall intent is to infuse the new-school Do-It-Yourself community with a therapeutic dose of slightly non-Euclidean engineering, classic shop techniques and surreally interpreted physics,” explains Harris. “The projects are intended to make people say, ‘It does WHAT?!’”

Tags: invention, hack, modification

If you aren’t satisfied with the way that Windows Vista or XP is working, don’t worry — help is here. O’Reilly’s newest release, Big Book of Windows Hacks, covers everything from multimedia to hardware to Internet, and more.

Well-known technology expert Preston Gralla brings over 100 hacks to those of us who don’t have time to find shortcuts and workarounds on our own. Gralla is highly qualified to write this book, having collected hundreds of new tips about both Vista and XP. His hacks and tips include enough step-by-step details and technical background to satisfy advanced users, but are also presented in an approachable, down-to-earth way so that less-advanced users can make use of them as well.

“I’ve been using and writing about Windows since Windows 1.0, and have accumulated a great deal of expertise about the operating system in that time,” says Gralla. “I’ve figured out hundreds of tips and tricks through the years… and find more every day. This book is a way to help others with Windows… It’s authoritative, as well as being approachable, and written for people with many different levels of experience.”

Bigger, better, and broader in scope than any previous hacks books, the Big Book of Windows Hacks gives you everything you need to get the most out of your Windows Vista or XP system, including its related applications and the hardware it runs on or connects to. Whether you want to tweak Vista’s Aero interface, build customized sidebar gadgets and run them from a USB key, or hack the “unhackable” screensavers, you’ll find quick and ingenious ways to bend these recalcitrant operating systems to your will.

The Big Book of Windows Hacks includes:

• Expanded tutorials, new background material, a series of “quick hacks,” and informative sidebars
• Security hacks, including protection at wireless hotspots, hacking Vista file permissions and user account protection, and more
• Efficiency hacks, such as tweaking your PC hardware, troubleshooting hardware problems, and speeding up system performance
• Fun hacks, like building a custom Media Center PC or turning a PC into a digital video recorder
• “Beyond Windows” hacks for running Linux inside Vista, dual-booting Linux/Windows or XP/Vista, or emulating classic video games on your PC

In all, this remarkable book contains more than 100 hacks so that the power user in you never again needs to be at the mercy of systems and hardware run by Microsoft’s domineering Vista and XP operating systems.

Tags: windows hacks, make magazine, diy

Let the sun shine on your evil side - and have a wicked amount of fun on your way to becoming a solar energy master! In this guide, the popular Evil Genius format ramps up your understanding of powerful, important, and environmentally friendly solar energy - and shows you how to build real, practical solar energy projects you can use in your home, yard - even on the road!

In Solar Energy Projects for the Evil Genius, high-tech guru Gavin Harper gives you everything you need to build more than 30 thrilling solar energy projects. You’ll find complete, easy-to-follow plans, with clear diagrams and schematics, so you know exactly what’s involved before you begin.

• Illustrated instructions and plans for 30 amazing pretested solar energy projects that assume no prior experience with energy science
• Explanations of the science and math behind each project
• Projects that progress in difficulty - from simple ones that may inspire science fair entries - all the way to converting a real home to solar energy
• Frustration-factor removal-needed parts are listed, along with sources-plus all the tools you’ll need

Solar Energy Projects for the Evil Genius provides you with complete plans, instructions, parts lists, and sources for:

• Crushed berries solar cell
• Solar “death ray”
• Solar powered hot dog cooker
• Solar furnace
• Sun-powered refrigerator
• Camping shower, oven, and more
• Hot recipes for solar cooking
• Water purifier
• Flashlight
• Garden lights
• Solar vehicle
• Environmentally friendly robot
• Much more!

Tags: solar power, alternative energy

YouTube For Dummies takes the classic Dummies tact in helping tech novices get a handle on a popular technology that more tech-savvy audiences consider “simple.” With so much content on YouTube getting media attention, more first-timers are jumping on the site and they need help. The book also helps the next step audience of users looking to add content to YouTube. Content includes:

• Watching the Tube - includes getting your PC ready for YouTube viewing, finding video, signing up for an account, and creating favorites.
• Loading Video to YouTube — covers the nuts and bolts of shooting video, transferring it to a PC, editing it, and sending it up to YouTube.
• Bringing Along YouTube — covers the various ways you can use YouTube video in places other than on the site. Includes mobile YouTube and adding
• videos to your MySpace page or another Web site.
• I Always Wanted To Direct — explores how to use YouTube’s directors program to upload longer video, use the site for marketing, or launch your own videoblog.

Tags: youtube, online video

“The book is here,” says an enthusiastic David Pogue about his latest publication, iPhone: The Missing Manual — the very first book about Apple’s new cellphone to hit the streets. Pogue’s witty, authoritative, full-color manual truly unlocks the iPhone’s potential.

Between the covers of iPhone: The Missing Manual readers will find an entertaining, generously illustrated guide detailing how to use iPhone, along with tips, shortcuts, and workarounds. Full of humor, tricks, and surprises, Pogue shows readers how to extend iPhone’s usefulness by exploiting its links to the Web as well as its connection to Macs or PCs; how to save money using Internet-based messages instead of phone calls; and how to fill the iPhone with TV shows and DVDs for free.

Coverage includes:

• The phone and organizer. Sophisticated features like conference calling, visual voicemail, and text messaging are a finger tap away. This book offers detailed instructions for syncing the iPhone with the address book and calendar on a Mac or PC. It even covers syncing topics even Apple never dreamed of, like syncing a single iPhone with multiple computers, or using the iPhone as a data bucket to merge the address books from several different PCs.
• The iPod. With a finger swipe or a pinch on the 3.5-inch, multitouch screen, you can bring your music, photos, and videos to life. These pages cover the iPhone’s entertainment features and how they interact with the digital files on your Mac or PC.
• The Internet. The iPhone can get online in two ways: on Wi-Fi hot spots or on AT&T’s cellular network. Learn how to manage multiple accounts, subscribe to RSS feeds, and keep your iPhone secure. The book tackles such non-obvious problems as solving the “two-mailbox problem” and remedying the iPhone’s lack of a spam filter.
• The hardware and software. The iPhone may be the world’s coolest computer, but it’s still a computer, with all its complexities.

For busy professionals, working parents, and anyone else who owns an iPhone or plans to get one soon and hopes to take advantage of everything the iPhone’s offers, David Pogue’s latest Missing Manual makes it possible.

Tags: iphone, smart phone

Adobe Photoshop is central to most digital photography workflows, and the introduction of CS3 is a major milestone in the maturation of this imaging suite. Photographers often feel overwhelmed when starting with Photoshop - the sheer number of tools and options make it difficult for the novice. This mammoth program has no shortage of instructional books, yet very few books direct the user to the most significant aspects of the program.

Brad and Steve have leveraged their experience as teachers and practitioners to create a step-by-step guide that provides a simple and effective workflow for editing photographs in Photoshop. Photoshop CS3 Photographer’s Handbook: An Easy Workflow focuses on the critical elements of the workflow rather than covering every arcane feature. This handbook is designed to get you working quickly in Photoshop. It provides the essential information for image editing along with step-by-step projects for more advanced Photoshop techniques.

Use the Photoshop CS3 Photographer’s Handbook to:

• Gain a solid foundation toward understanding the tools and processes used to edit photographs using Photoshop CS3
• Learn a practical workflow for editing images - including organizing images, clean-up, basic image editing, editing with selections, and applying effects
• Learn individual techniques for image editing by following simple step-by-step instructions for each technique
• Learn photographic techniques for image editing - like removing blue casts from shadows, blending images together, and correcting skin-tones

Tags: photoshop, c3

Whether you’re responsible for hundreds of Windows clients or just a roomful of computers, Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide can help you install, configure, and maintain Vista.

In his timely new publication, Microsoft expert Brian Culp aims to help users of all stripes understand the most significant features of this new OS. “My book is especially targeted for administrators,” says Culp. “It was updated with the latest news and information about Windows Vista until the moment it went to the printer. I’ve also set up a kind of ‘living appendix’ online. It’s a website I’ve set up where readers of Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide can get answers to questions not answered in the book. Readers can continue their exploration at brianculp.com.”

The topics covered include:

• A tour of what’s new, including Aero, Sidebar, BitLocker Drive Encryption, and Vista Search
• An overview of all five versions of Windows Vista
• Getting started with workgroup networks, user profiles, and VPN connections
• Personalizing Vista with virtual folders, Flip 3D, and the new Control Panel
• Working with software and hardware, such as installing printers and storage devices
• Configuring Internet Explorer 7: phishing filters, cookies and privacy, the pop-up blocker, and RSS feeds
• Deploying Windows Vista: installation, imaging software, modules, and migrating data
• Optimizing performance: memory, processor, disks, applications, network, and command-line administration
• Security: auditing, disk quotas, account policies, user rights, group rights, and IP security
• Troubleshooting tips: the Startup repair tool, frozen applications, remote assistance, and backup and restore

And that list just scratches the surface of this new book’s contents. For up-to-the-minute answers about which new features significantly improve the operating system experience and what makes Windows Vista worth the investment, read this book.

Tags: windows vista, vista administration

Most photographers will agree that after buying cameras, lenses, computer gear, and software, the spending never seems to end. More gear is needed for studio, tabletop, and flash photography, and for accessories here and there. Often, the right accessories are not even available. That is where this book comes in.

Low Budget Shooting: Do It Yourself Solutions To Professional Photo Gear is the one-stop source where you will find instructions and a shopping list on how to build an array of useful and inexpensive photographic tools.

Filled with full-color images and easy-to-follow text, this book shows how to build essential lighting and studio equipment for use inside the studio as well as in the filed.

In this book you will learn:

• How to make the perfect light-table for shooting small objects
• How to build reflectors, soft-boxes, and light-tents that really work
• How to build equipment for use on the road
• Where to get some of the little helpers that make a photographer’s life so much easier

This clever little book is a creative and valuable resource for most any photographer.

Tags: photo, photography, digital photography

First the crew over at MAKE and CRAFT Magazines — the “Bible of the DIY movement” — lit a big ol’ bonfire of enthusiasm for the growing community of garage inventors, backyard scientists, crafters, and DIY enthusiasts around the planet. Now they’re giving makers, crafters, business folks, and home office workers the tips, tools, and hacks for streamlining their spreadsheets in Excel Hacks, Second Edition.

Millions of users create and share Excel spreadsheets every day, but few go deeply enough to learn the techniques that will make their work much easier. Yet there are many ways to take advantage of Excel’s sophisticated capabilities without spending hours on advanced study. Excel Hacks, Second Edition provides more than 130 hacks — clever tools, tips and techniques — that will leapfrog your work beyond the ordinary.

Now expanded to include Excel 2007, authors Dave and Raina Hawley provide a resourceful, roll-up-your-sleeves guide that gives you little known “backdoor” tricks for several Excel versions using different platforms and external applications.

“With improved functionality with the release of Excel 2007, and the requirement in many offices to work across a range of applications in our work, share workbooks and work with the web, the release of Excel 2007 makes this much more user-friendly and easy to manage,” explains Raina. “We run one of the largest Excel Question and Answer Forums in the world and the book is a product of some of the more common problems that people may encounter.

So think of this book as a toolbox. When a need arises or a problem occurs, you can simply use the right tool for the job. Hacks are grouped into chapters so you can find what you need quickly, including ways to:

• Reduce workbook and worksheet frustration: Manage how users interact with worksheets, find and highlight information, and deal with debris and corruption.
• Analyze and manage data: Extend and automate these features, moving beyond the limited tasks they were designed to perform.
• Hack names: Learn not only how to name cells and ranges, but also how to create names that adapt to the data in your spreadsheet.
• Get the most out of PivotTables: Avoid the problems that make them frustrating and learn how to extend them.
• Create customized charts: Tweak and combine Excel’s built-in charting capabilities.
• Hack formulas and functions: Subjects range from moving formulas around to dealing with datatype issues to improving recalculation time.
• Make the most of macros: Including ways to manage them and use them to extend other features.
• Use the enhanced capabilities of Microsoft Office 2007 to combine Excel with Word, Access, and Outlook.

Tags: excel, microsoftoffice, spreadsheet

Ubuntu has been hailed as the Linux distribution for newbies, and it’s certainly the Linux for the less geeky among us. Even the name “Ubuntu” is user friendly (a South African term that translates roughly as “humanity toward others”). And that’s a phrase that could well describe author Rickford Grant’s approach to teaching Linux. Completely human.

Full of tips, tricks, and real-world projects, Ubuntu For Non-Geeks, 2nd Edition is a hands-on, project-based, take-it-slow guidebook for those interested in — but nervous about — switching to Linux.

This edition has been thoroughly updated for Feisty Fawn (v7.04), which spotlights multimedia support and desktop effects. Step-by-step projects throughout the book help readers absorb and apply what they’ve learned, as they learn, while they touch and play with their new operating system. “Rickford Grant’s Ubuntu for Non-Geeks, is a perfect introdution to Linux for the new or somewhat experienced Linux user” said No Starch Press Founder, Bill Pollock. “Rickford always treats his reader with respect and never patronizes. He knows just what topics to cover and how to explain those topics in ways that makes sense to even the least geekiest; like, err, my mother.”

Readers learn how to:

• Download and install free software, games, and tools
• Connect to the Internet and wireless networks
• Configure hardware, including printers, scanners, and removable devices
• Watch DVDs, listen to music, and even sync up an iPod
• Download photos and videos from a digital camera, then edit and share them
• Keep everything up to date

Ubuntu For Non-Geeks, 2nd Edition includes a CD of Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) that lets readers run Ubuntu without making any permanent changes to their computer. Then, when the time is right, they can install Ubuntu from that same CD.

Whether readers have just purchased a new Ubuntu-based Dell computer and need a patient guide, or they’re just looking for a pain-free way to finally make the switch to Linux, they’ll find the help and direction that they need in Rickford Grant’s Ubuntu For Non-Geeks, 2nd Edition.

Tags: ubuntu, linux, open source

Closeup photography is one of the most fascinating photographic genres. Closeup Shooting: A Guide to Closeup, Tabletop, and Macro Photography takes the reader on a journey into this fascinating world of small, smaller, and smallest objects, and shows how to capture their beauty with photographic images. Each step of the way is carefully explained; choosing the right equipment, using ambient or artificial lighting, and conceptualizing and framing the perfect shot.

The “table top photographer” is trying to shoot a small object, a product, or a tiny treasure for display on the Web (e.g., eBay) or in print. This book teaches the importance of choosing the appropriate lighting and backdrop, as well as the creative use of the camera’s features, which are key to getting a perfect image.

Cyrill Harnischmacher explains all aspects of closeup shooting for inside the studio, as well as outdoors. This book is filled with beautifully illustrated examples and detailed instructions on how to set up a system and workflow for successful close-up photography.

Filled with captivating, beautiful pictures that make this book not only educational for the photography enthusiast, but also worthy of finding a place on your coffee table where it will be enjoyed by all.

The news about Microsoft Office’s gutsy overhaul is upbeat. Folks call the centerpiece of the redesign — a craftsman-like super-toolbar called the ribbon — the best thing to hit the Office scene in years. Another useful innovation, the Quick Access toolbar, is easily customizable. And the Live Preview function saves time and hassle by letting users instantly see how a new effect looks in their document.

Thankfully, Office 2007: The Missing Manual is right there to delight and assist every Office upgrader. The fun-to-read yet authoritative resource — truly four books in one — makes it easy and enjoyable for users to adapt and use the new features of Microsoft’s most popular programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access.

“Knowing how to use Microsoft Office is the modern-day equivalent of knowing how to type. And with the release of Office 2007, Microsoft has raised the learning bar even higher,” notes Peter Meyers, managing editor for the Missing Manual series. “All of Office’s core programs — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access — can do more than ever, but each works in an entirely new way. With Office 2007: The Missing Manual, we present the most reader-friendly approach that you’ll find in any book out there. Rather than a boring catalog of every tool in every program, we cover the most common tasks that people are trying to accomplish. Imagine that: A tech book that’s focused on the reader rather than on the program.”

Written by longtime O’Reilly authors and software experts Chris Grover, Matthew MacDonald, and E. A. Vander Veer, Office 2007: The Missing Manual offers a walkthrough of Microsoft’s redesigned Office user interface before taking you through the basics of creating text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases.

The redesigned and upgraded Office 2007 programs run on either Windows Vista or Windows XP operating systems. Office 2007: The Missing Manual makes it easy for students, families, and professionals to learn how to:

• Navigate the ribbon — the new tabbed toolbar
• Create everything from basic Word documents to sophisticated page layouts
• Build and edit Excel spreadsheets, perform calculations, and manage lists of data
• Deliver professional and captivating presentations with PowerPoint
• Design a useful Access database that’s easy to sort, search, and share