Previously recommended reads

I’m finding that I can place many sections of BillDay.com into a better location within BillDay.com v2.0. One of those sections, my “favorites” page of recommended books, sites, movies, and more, should now be much easier to search since I’ve created a Recommended category in my blog for recommended items.

I’ve included previous recommendations below, all lumped together. In the future, I’ll link to/recommend things as I encounter them.

Previous recommendations:

• Selling the Dream: How to Promote Your Product, Company, or Ideas And Make a Difference Using Everyday Evangelism, by Guy Kawasaki. Guy’s book has a lengthy title but succinct delivery: It goes a very long way to explain what evangelism is and why it is increasingly important in our technology-driven world. An oldie but a goodie, highly recommended to anyone who asks “What is a Technology Evangelist, anyway?“.
• The Mythical Man Month, by Fred Brooks, published by Addison Wesley. This is a classic tale of managment philosophy and software engineering. It contains some of the best descriptions of human behavior and engineering intuition ever distilled into book format. A must read for anyone managing, or working on, complex projects of any sort.
• Know Your Enemy: Revealing the Security Tools, Tactics, and Motives of the Blackhat Community by The Honeynet Project et al. Ever wondered how people actually break into computers and networks? Read this and you’ll have a good idea. A practical, hands-on oriented book.
• Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier. If you’re only going to buy one book on crypto fundamentals, this should be it. A great book, and a great door stop: Yes, it is very bulky, but in a good way!
• A Technical Introduction to Digital Video, by Charles Poynton, published by John Wiley & Sons. A thorough reference book. Covers a variety of computer graphics as well as analog and digital video topics. Includes a very good chapter on filtering and sampling, giving an in depth explanation of aliasing effects. If you deal with computer graphics or video, this book is strongly recommended.
• Introduction to Computer Graphics, by Foley et al, published by Addison Wesley. This abridged version of Computer Graphics: Principles and Practices (from Addison Wesley’s Systems Programming series) is an outstanding introduction to both 2D and 3D computer graphics. There are plenty of equations and theory for the mathematician, but even better for folks like me (hackers), there is a nice sprinkling of C code and example images. If you need the most comprehensive reference, go with the unabridged version (all 1175 pages of it!), but if you are looking for an introduction, I
  recommend this book.
• A Programmer’s Guide to Sound, by Tim Kientzle, published by Addison Wesley. Covers the basics of the generation and perception of sound, then shifts into a discussion of the various formats in common use by software engineers and hackers. This book serves well as a compendium of audio knowledge scattered around in specs, standards, and papers. An excellent audio intro.
• Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, by Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. Published in the US and Canada by HarperCollins. This look inside the mind of the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet provides the best lesson in human compasion and dignity that I have ever read or seen. Recommended for anyone, anywhere.