The author works hard to simplify and break down each general area so the seasoned IT professional or the CIO can easily digest each section. The structure and flow of the book takes you from the initial introduction to exactly what cloud computing and offerings exist and then blends into the differences in architecture before addressing security.

Legal aspects are not a deep topic in chapter 3. Each subsection could almost be a book of it’s own if someone wanted to write the very specific nuances each area required like HIPPA and EU Safe Harbor. Instead, the author highlights key and common risk issues and what should be evaluated and asked of yourself and the provider.

The middle chapters 4-6 work through the architecture, data security techniques and techniques for deployment in a secure fashion. Even though the chapters are about 30-50 pages each, the detail was perfect. I found the summary to be the place I started to understand what I was about to cover and then I read the chapter. It might be a personal preference but I like a higher overview right away to get a feel for where we are headed and stop points I can take.

Chapter 8 builds a checklist you need to begin the cloud provider selection process. Standards, verifications and even plain old claims are addressed. The author does well providing some basic criteria to start your own investigation into choosing a provider.

The two end chapters anticipate you have chosen a provider and now want to begin the basics operating your cloud security and architecture. These chapters are shorter than the middle ones where the meat of the book is anyway.

Overall I plan on reading this book again and making more bookmarks and notes. I wish I had gotten the digital version to make that whole process easier and I can see where the author can take subsections and additional writings as the interest in the cloud continues to grow for companies.

I suggest you get your hands on this now before making the leap into cloud technology to save a lot of time and effort after the fact.

Disclosure: the links for the book are all Amazon affiliate and I was not compensated to write any form of review for this book.

Throughout the book are case studies on different companies, including the author’s own company,  I found those to be quick and helpful bits, often more than the chapter they are included with.  She makes some basic points clear, but it seemed to stop there, at the basic.

I often grade a book on how many pages i bookmark, this one only has three pages marked.  The title section of the book hits on page 115, breaking down what the author considers the social media business equation and how to calculate your efforts.  it is helpful, I had only wised the 100+ pages before it had the same effect.
Disclosure: The above links are Amazon affiliate links.

I recommend this book for the samples and examples for any size company to implement their technology policies.

Disclosure: The link to Smart Policies for Workplace Technologies is an Amazon affiliate link.

This small, yet incredibly useful, book covers 21 tips and accompanying code for mining Twitter data.  There is no fluff in this 60 page book with page 1 diving right into OAuth access.

Each of the tips (recipes) start with the problem , a brief solution and then the lengthy solution and code samples to bring the two together.  Everything in the book is written in Python with much of it being made accessible via easy_install.

While the majority of this book is code, it is an incredible companion to get you moving in pulling data, trends or just about anything from Twitter.  Creating and analyzing graphs becomes easier, discovering friendships and cliques, pulling geo-data and even finding a retweet’s source.

Much of the metadata we produce via Twitter gets lost instantly, since no one digs and mines the underlying data. This book can help you build some product or service you want around Twitter and hands you basic code to get you started. The book  21 Recipes for Mining Twitter is a great resource.

Disclosure: The links above are Amazon affiliate.

Reflections on Management, is an excellent read for anytime managing time. The book is only around 200 pages filled with insight, stories and techniques from the years of  being a manager and executive at IBM.

Many of the stories that Watts Humphrey tells are situations we have all been in regarding time management on projects. As the manager with unreal expectations, to the developer being told how long they will take to write code.  No matter how big the project. I was able to laugh a few times and see myself sitting in those meetings as I was told how long migrations, upgrades and more would take by someone that had just made up a timeline hours before.

Reflections on Management covers eight chapters broken into four distinct sections.  Managing your project, managing your team, managing your boss and managing yourself.  If you are a boss, you learn how to better handle projects and your teams.  As in individual it is all of value.

I read this book slowly over the last month taking a few notes as I went along.  The end result was a better timeline of how to plan and manage.  Better timekeeping and also a stronger layout and timeline for the amount content I produce across my blogs and podcasts/webcasts.  Some things will and are being cut.  Others are moving into new directions that allows me to streamline process and have a structure of when things are published.

To all of my ISV friends, get a copy.  Project managers should have read this already in preparing for their job.  Administrators can relate some story to every scenario he presents.  You will gain back more time after reading the book in better planning.

The author, Justin Cutroni, is one of a few Google Analytics Certified Partners and it showed.  When I begin bookmarking pages in books, I know I found valuable content.  This book opened my eyes into ways to utilize and manage my analytics settings and reports.

The book starts with a brief outline of web analytics in general, to give you a base understanding of what to measure.  It then moves into building a plan before implementation and how Google Analytics actually work.  Profiles, filters, conversions and marketing campaigns are all discussed in detail before you even get into advanced tracking.  Enterprise implementation concerns, CRM integration and appendices of tools round out the book.

I did want to mention one common thing found throughout the book.  The code tracking examples make the book worth way more that what you pay.  I found immediate value implementing some changes in profiles and the way I implemented tracking codes across my sites.

Accounts, profiles and building campaigns all blend into excellent reporting, included targeted sectioning of portions of your corporate sites.

I have been back through two chapters twice making changes and tweaking settings.  This in itself designates that it will show in my recommended books in m site Amazon Store link.

The book itself is broken into sections, with colored page edges for quick sorting of each main category:

• At Work
• At Leisure
• Creative Corner
• At Play
• At Home
• Out and About
• For Your Health

Each main section then had subsections with the best of application for each category well defined.  The logo, description, reasoning, costs and image were included.  Some of subsections even had honorable mentions when the competition was close.

By just over 50 pages in I had numerous apps downloading already from the iTunes store.  It became clear that with the sheer number of applications in the store, you cannot find them all.  Reviews are always all over the place, with a few complaints able to simply change your mind.

So why would you choose this book over the numerous web articles always showing the Top 10 iPad Apps?  I wondered that as well.  Now I get it.  The book goes category by category.  Web listings seem to have the same ones over and over.  You never get a good feel for what is out there and how deep the catalog is in capabilities.

Much like we do with all of the social media screencasts here and Twitter application reviews on EverythingTwitter, the author of the book claims to have personally tested thousands of applications to make this catalog.

The book was done in extremely high quality coloring and screenshots.  The layout is landscape mode, making it easy to hold pages open as you read and search on your iPad.

A couple notes I wanted to make.  Sure, there is so many games for the ipad.  But there is also great busienss value and I was shocked to see the awesome amount of content in health and wellness I would have never even thought about.  Some of the HD content is amazing to have right in your hand.  Also, the index in the back matches the table of contents, so nothing was gained there.

Overall, an excellent book for those looking to find applications already tested and ready to go.  The price at the time of writing is shown, but check for yourself before saying it it too much as I found a few on sale or discounted now.

I recommend Best iPad Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders by Peter Meyers.

(Yes, the above links are affiliate links on Amazon as usual)

I worked through the pages quickly, even folding corners on pages I really found value in.  I was shocked to see the number of them I flagged when I had completed the book.  It made me realize this book of less than 200 pages answered many questions I personally had about how best to market across Facebook.

The author starts the book with a quick 5 page summary on social network growth and then a required 25 pages for anyone new to Facebook.  I know it seems strange, but there is those that have never been in Facebook yet.  So this snapshot is always important.  The author even suggests you skip that chapter is you know it already.

Chapter 3 begins the knowledge transfer of building a corporate presence and deciding between pages and groups.  Throughout the book he does a great job of explaining why one would be better in certain circumstances over the other.  Promotion of the page is key in any company advertising and he makes a quick case for ways to build a following through grass roots.

Interestingly, he also jumped into Facebook Connect in Chapter 4, which you do not see many corporate sites using.  I know his main focus was on the sharing aspect but he also addressed single sign on.  Chapter 5 focused on advertising and the best ways to invest to build your presence in Facebook.  The strategy talk continued in Chapter 8-10.

He crammed Chapter 7 on Privacy in the middle.  I personally would have liked at the end for flow of the marketing piece.  In saying that, privacy and account management is key when promoting company information.  He explains the need for individual account, with more than one person having the ability to administrate the group or page for the company marketing.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking into Facebook marketing.  Whether you are an individual through giant corporation.

Disclosure: Que publishing sent me this book for review with no guarantee of what I would write.  Facebook Marketing (Second Edition) by Justin Levy definitely goes into my Amazon Store of recommendations for the book category.  Yes, all the book links are Amazon affiliate.

Head First WordPress starts the reader with a basic understanding of the platform, quick install, dashboard and a quick walk through making your first posting.  While I run many blogs (including this one) on WordPress, I appreciated the way anyone could have read this first chapter and felt comfortable in posting via WordPress.

Chapter 2 moves into simple and advanced design changes with a ground floor introduction to the anatomy of WordPress, PHP usage, templates, themes, stylesheets, widgets and more.  With these 40 pages you should be able to make simple changes, add widgets, change a few PHP files and create a custom homepage.

Chapters 3 and 4 work together in organization and showing how WordPress can be a content management system using categories and the strength of using tags in conjunction.  Simplifying navigation and changing colors is a focus in the CSS section.  Roles of users and commenting ability rounds out the 70+ pages in these two chapters.

Podcasting and video embedding are a major focus in social media right now and Chapter 5 covers all aspects.  Even a sample breakdown of xml usage and possible plug-ins are listed so anyone could begin sharing media quickly.  I appreciated how they showed numerous examples of hosting your own, embedding and pulling content from remote sites in Chapter 5.  They carried this into Chapter 6 with the explanation of RSS and how this shares your content further than anyone just reading your blog on the web.

Now even I learned some tricks in Chapter 7 for locking down your WordPress servers.  From security in accounts, directory  security, backups and the power of plug-ins was covered in a middle level with plenty of diagrams, pictures and step-by-step tutorials.

Chapter 8 dove into external versus self hosting, WordPress speed improvements, tracking (such as Google Analytics) and caching of your files.  I knew of some of the plug-ins they explained and suggested, but the breakdown of how they functioned was incredibly helpful.

Just when you felt they were done they toss another 10 pages of 10 tips that didn’t quite fit anywhere else in the book.  The book is based on recent WordPress versions as they used the beta of 3.0 for examples and screenshots making it a must have for anyone upgrading and new to WordPress.

This will make it into TheSocialNetworker book selections in the Amazon Store you can find linked above or right here.  I place the top technical books I have reviewed in the store for you to easily find and purchase. (yes they are referral links to Amazon).

This book definitely took my thoughts on WordPress theme design to new levels while simplifying the entire process.  The book is made to teach you how to design, build and sell your own themes.  But, it is just as informative for someone wanting to extend themes into your own creations for your WordPress blog.

A brief few pages are placed at the beginning to introduce WordPress and what a theme means inside the system.  Chapter 2 starts the process of planning your theme and stresses the importance research of existing themes before building your site.  Wireframe design is explained for the entire site and page layouts.

Theme design in Chapter 3 gives great example screenshots and explanations of color selection.  The remainder of the chapter is a core port of the book breaking down each individual component of a WordPress theme.  I learned incredible amounts in these 30 pages of content.

Theme frameworks are an excellent starting point where you use existing themes and build child themes that refer to them.  Chapter 4 gives examples to investigate and start the child theme build.  Once we entered Chapter 5 for advanced theme construction I took away a lot of tips as someone that runs multiple WordPress sites, but is not a developer.  The simple way they show code usage, inserts and placement made it easy to understand.  The authors then start bringing your child theme and customizations together.

Later chapters get into WordPress widget placement, design and even building your own.  They close the building process in Chapter 7 with theme options.  This runs through creating extra options and controls panels, variants in color and more for someone interested in selling their new creation.  it streamlines how a buyer would use and implement your new theme.

The last portion in Chapter 8 surprised me it was in the book as I would not have thought of including it, but it was definitely needed.  Chapter 8 covers the licensing, GPL, around your theme and what it means.  The authors make you think about support, proper documentation and even tutorials.  Some tips at the end help you sell the theme by including options and where to best list it to be sold.

Overall, I am very impressed.  Look for a bunch of changes coming to my WordPress based sites very soon.  With this book and some basic WordPress knowledge, you can easily create or customize any WordPress theme you can get your hands on.

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