Computers & Internet Books

Direct From Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry

Amazon Price: $18.00 List Price: $18.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: HarperAudio Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $1.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Strategy & Competition
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Management
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 128 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The PC business is full of rags-to-riches stories. But perhaps none is as dramatic as the rise of Dell Computer. In Direct from Dell, founder and CEO Michael Dell tells how he started his company from a dorm room at the University of Texas with less than $1,000 and built it into an industry powerhouse with a market capitalization of well over $100 billion. What makes Dell Computer unique is not what it sells, but rather how it sells it. Dell was first in the PC industry to pioneer the direct-selling model, a method that competitors such as Compaq and Apple Computer are only now starting to embrace. By cutting out the intermediary and creating a direct link between manufacturer and customer, Dell was able to provide customers with computers that cost less and that were more apt to meet customer needs.

Direct from Dell is organized into two parts. The first recounts the history and the enormous growth of Dell Computer. The second part focuses on Dell's management approach, from developing customer focus to creating alliances with suppliers. The book manages to avoid most of the promotional and self-congratulatory air that seem to plague so many first-person CEO tomes. Anyone who has followed the PC industry or would like insight into Dell Computer's success should enjoy reading this book. Well written and easy to read. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

A Rat's Tale

Tor Seidler

By: Listening Library Amazon Marketplace: 3 new & used starting at $15.07

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Networking -> Networks, Protocols & APIs -> General

Editorial Review:

"...home from Central Park, he is quickly introduced to a vibrant world beyond his own secluded sewer pipe. But this wider rat world, Montague learns, is threatened with extermination. And much as he longs to help his fellow rats---and win Isabel's paw---what can he, small and alone and outcast, possibly do? "Tor Seidler has created a rat to stand alongside Stuart Little." ---The New York Times Book Review [from case]

The Joy of Science, Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (The Great Courses, Science & Mathematics)

George Mason University and Carnegie Institution of Washington Taught by Professor Robert M. Hazen

By: The Teaching Company Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $72.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Games & Strategy Guides -> Internet Games
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Games & Strategy Guides -> Video Games
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> General

Editorial Review:

"Part 1: 12 Lectures/30 minutes per lecture, 6 Cassette Tapes with course guidebooklet. Part 2: 12 Lectures/30 minutes per lecture, 6 cassette tapes with course guidebooklet. Part 3: 12 Lectures/30 minutes per lecture, 6 cassette tapes with course guidebooklet. Part 4: 12 Lectures/30 minutes per lecture, 6 cassette tapes with course guidebooklet. Part 5: 12 Lectures/30 minutes per lecture, 6 cassette tapes with course guidebooklet." "Professor Robert M. Hazen is Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George Mason University and a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He received Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Geology from MIT and a Ph.D. in Earth Science from Harvard University. Among his many awards is the Educational Press Association Award. His 15 books include the best-selling Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy. He has written over 220 scholarly articles." [from the back of cases]

Stealing Your Life

Frank W. Abagnale

Amazon Price: $24.95 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Blackstone Audio Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $15.72

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Personal Finance -> General
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> Culture

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Stealing Your Life - FWA 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I enjoy security books by Abagnale and this is no different. There are people that will say that this material should not be published as so many crooks will copy the techniques. The crooks already know these techniques and a crook using old techniques will get caught sooner than later. Frank discusses both the holes in the system as well as a variety of ways you can plug them (if you are vulnerable). It is the innocents that do not realize the danger they put themselves into on a daily basis that need, really need, to read (listen to) this book. I believe that everyone could benefit by reading this book (even if you work in this field).

Editorial Review:

Brimming with anecdotes of creative criminality that are as entertaining as they are enlightening, Stealing Your Life is the practical way to shield yourself from one of today's most nefarious and common crimes.

Join the Club 2 AC

Lisa Naylor

Amazon Price: $29.60 List Price: $29.60 Usually ships in 24 hours By: McGraw-Hill Companies Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $24.98

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Reference -> Words & Language -> Reading Skills
Subjects -> Reference -> General
Subjects -> Reference -> Foreign Languages -> Instruction -> English as a Foreign Language -> General

Editorial Review:

Watch your students’ self-confidence soar as they become fluent in the use of English idioms and expressions.

This two-level program closes the gap between classroom and authentic language with:

Well-structured, cumulative activities, practice, and review;

Student-centered activities within uniform chapter format;

Integrated listening, speaking, reading, and writing;

Chapter Reviews for quizzing and testing;

A New Expression Log for recording new expressions and Index/Glossary of definitions for every expression;

A Grammar Guide for parts of speech, phrasal verbs, and gerunds; and

An Audio Program for each level that provides students with the opportunity to listen to snippets of Conversation to determine whether or not expressions are used correctly.

Join the Club 1 (Low-Intermediate to Intermediate) is structures to help students quickly internalize 135 of the most common and useful English idioms and expressions.

Join the Club 2 (Intermediate to Advanced) features over 400 more expressions to be practiced and reviewed.

This audiocassette is designed to accompany the intermediate to advanced level student book.

The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics

Roger Penrose

List Price: $25.00 By: New Millennium Audio Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $20.76

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> General
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Some love it, some hate it, but The Emperor's New Mind, physicist Roger Penrose's 1989 treatise attacking the foundations of strong artificial intelligence, is crucial for anyone interested in the history of thinking about AI and consciousness. Part survey of modern physics, part exploration of the philosophy of mind, the book is not for casual readers--though it's not overly technical, it rarely pauses to let the reader catch a breath. The overview of relativity and quantum theory, written by a master, is priceless and uncontroversial. The exploration of consciousness and AI, though, is generally considered as resting on shakier ground.

Penrose claims that there is an intimate, perhaps unknowable relation between quantum effects and our thinking, and ultimately derives his anti-AI stance from his proposition that some, if not all, of our thinking is non-algorithmic. Of course, these days we believe that there are other avenues to AI than traditional algorithmic programming; while he has been accused of setting up straw robots to knock down, this accusation is unfair. Little was then known about the power of neural networks and behavior-based robotics to simulate (and, some would say, produce) intelligent problem-solving behavior. Whether these tools will lead to strong AI is ultimately a question of belief, not proof, and The Emperor's New Mind offers powerful arguments useful to believer and nonbeliever alike. --Rob Lightner

The Age of Spiritual Machines

Ray Kurzweil

List Price: $19.95 By: Penguin Audio Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $46.88

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> General
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> General
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 180 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

How much do we humans enjoy our current status as the most intelligent beings on earth? Enough to try to stop our own inventions from surpassing us in smarts? If so, we'd better pull the plug right now, because if Ray Kurzweil is right we've only got until about 2020 before computers outpace the human brain in computational power. Kurzweil, artificial intelligence expert and author of The Age of Intelligent Machines, shows that technological evolution moves at an exponential pace. Further, he asserts, in a sort of swirling postulate, time speeds up as order increases, and vice versa. He calls this the "Law of Time and Chaos," and it means that although entropy is slowing the stream of time down for the universe overall, and thus vastly increasing the amount of time between major events, in the eddy of technological evolution the exact opposite is happening, and events will soon be coming faster and more furiously. This means that we'd better figure out how to deal with conscious machines as soon as possible--they'll soon not only be able to beat us at chess, but also likely demand civil rights, and might at last realize the very human dream of immortality.

The Age of Spiritual Machines is compelling and accessible, and not necessarily best read from front to back--it's less heavily historical if you jump around (Kurzweil encourages this). Much of the content of the book lays the groundwork to justify Kurzweil's timeline, providing an engaging primer on the philosophical and technological ideas behind the study of consciousness. Instead of being a gee-whiz futurist manifesto, Spiritual Machines reads like a history of the future, without too much science fiction dystopianism. Instead, Kurzweil shows us the logical outgrowths of current trends, with all their attendant possibilities. This is the book we'll turn to when our computers first say "hello." --Therese Littleton

60 Minutes Towards Computer Literacy

Julian P. Padowicz, Donna K. Carter

Amazon Price: $12.95 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Business Film International Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $6.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General

Editorial Review:

Eighty minutes, in the current edition, this audio book is intended to make basic computer concepts and vocabulary understandable to virtually anyone, with particular attention to persons who find conventional computer instruction difficult. It is co-authored by a computer scientist and a veteran educational writer who had, himself, experienced great difficulty in making sense out of either printed computer instruction or explanations offered by computer-literate friends and salespersons. This audio book explains such terms as, directory, subdirectory, RAM, ROM, microprocessor, operating system, floppy disk, memory, binary numbers, database, Windows, and more through a series of non-technical, non-threatening, and highly creative analogies to which all can relate.

Random access memory, for example, is likened to a stage actor's ability to memorize lines. Just as an actor with a small memory capability cannot handle roles with a lot of dialog lines, so a computer with relatively little memory cannot run software that requires a larger one. The role of an operating system is equated to the relationship between the blind and deaf Helen Keller whose genius mind had to be communicated with through her companion, Annie Sullivan, who translated spoken language into symbols traced in the palm of Ms. Keller's hand.

This audio book has been praised and recommended by numerous national and professional publications including PC Novice, Library Journal, Home Office Computing, Law Practice Management, Modern Office Technology, and Medical Book News, as well as numerous chapters of the Independent Insurance Agents Association and the American Bar Association.

60 Minutes Towards Computer Literacy

Julian P. Padowicz, Donna K. Carter

Amazon Price: $12.95 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Business Film International Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $6.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General

Editorial Review:

Eighty minutes, in the current edition, this audio book is intended to make basic computer concepts and vocabulary understandable to virtually anyone, with particular attention to persons who find conventional computer instruction difficult. It is co-authored by a computer scientist and a veteran educational writer who had, himself, experienced great difficulty in making sense out of either printed computer instruction or explanations offered by computer-literate friends and salespersons. This audio book explains such terms as, directory, subdirectory, RAM, ROM, microprocessor, operating system, floppy disk, memory, binary numbers, database, Windows, and more through a series of non-technical, non-threatening, and highly creative analogies to which all can relate.

Random access memory, for example, is likened to a stage actor's ability to memorize lines. Just as an actor with a small memory capability cannot handle roles with a lot of dialog lines, so a computer with relatively little memory cannot run software that requires a larger one. The role of an operating system is equated to the relationship between the blind and deaf Helen Keller whose genius mind had to be communicated with through her companion, Annie Sullivan, who translated spoken language into symbols traced in the palm of Ms. Keller's hand.

This audio book has been praised and recommended by numerous national and professional publications including PC Novice, Library Journal, Home Office Computing, Law Practice Management, Modern Office Technology, and Medical Book News, as well as numerous chapters of the Independent Insurance Agents Association and the American Bar Association.