Your Old Wiring Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a great resource for the non-professional who has to evaluate and/or repair old residential electrical systems. It is well-organized, thoroughly safety-oriented, and practical. The author, David E. Shapiro, is a master electrician with substantial experience. He not only translates the National Electrical Code into practical advice for the do-it-yourselfer, he isn't afraid to express his opinions and recommendations, which is rare in this kind of book. This kind of practical advice, based on long experience, is more valuable than the just-the-facts approach taken by so many DIY authors.
There are two problems with the book, however, and both are related to the graphics. Many of the photographs are blurry or otherwise unhelpful, and there are a number of places in the text where more phtotographs or illustrations would be quite helpful. I would have given this book five stars if the graphics were done as professionally as the text.
Finally, the book doesn't really deal with the "knob-and-tube" type wiring found in many older homes. The author is clear that many subjects are beyond the scope of this entry-level book, and knob-and-tube is one of the subjects that doesn't make it in.

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*Written by a master electrician this book shows homeowners and do-it-yourselfers how to go behind the walls of their old homes and correct messy, outdated wiring*Packed with over 250 photos and illustrations, 10 common wiring projects (like installing ceiling fans) and before and after photographs*The only house wiring book that shows how to identify and correct old electrical wiring, simply and safely

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Python: Create - Modify - Reuse Review

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(More customer reviews)I really wanted to like this book. As a professional C# developer, I have been learning Python the last few weeks. I got this book in hopes that it would provide some interesting projects.
I could not bring myself to like this book. It was a painful read because this book demonstrates poor and obsolete programming practices. I feel like this book would probably set a beginner back instead of helping them move forward. I would recommend almost any other Python book over this one.
The book does have seven fairly interesting projects, covering a wide breadth of the Python standard library (xml parsing, database access, file input/output, etc) and some web-based projects. That is why I wanted to like it. It covers interesting topics. However, this is not enough to make up for the sloppy editing, obsolete user interfaces, and poor programming practices. I will detail some of the problems below.
Sloppy editing - For example, look at the code sample at the top of page 31. This wouldn't even "compile" in Python's editor IDLE, because of the incorrect indenting.
....elif choice == "4":
........snapshothelper.showHelp()
.........else:
........if choice != "5":
............snapshothelper.invalidChoice()
The "else:" is intended wrong and then on page 32 the same code is excerpted except it has been copied incorrectly:
....elif choice == "4":
........snapshothelper.showHelp()
....else:
.........snapshothelper.invalidChoice()
You can see that the author corrected a mistake in the main block of code but then did not correct it in the excerpt.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for code blocks that will cause errors upon running them inside Python.
On to the next problem - The user interface for the command-line projects looks like something out of MS-DOS 3.1. In other words, it is extremely outdated, cumbersome and it's not even programmed effectively. The error messages are obtuse and don't even cover all the cases. Frankly, I expect a lot more from an author with an extensive background in testing. For example, in page 70, the "elif" block never checks for choices that are not 1 through 5. If you have an invalid choice it will cause a SQL error and print the error message "THERE WAS A PROBLEM MODIFYING THE RECORD" even though the error was caused by an invalid choice.
My final complaint is that the author does not follow Pythonic practices or even best practices from other languages. For example, the Try-Except blocks (page 79 for example) include large swaths of code instead of just the small section that will actually throw the exception. Also, the Except clause does not catch particular error classes but instead every error. These violate basic best practices for any language. Another example of not being very Pythonic is the lack of list comprehensions like on page 37 (also note that this sample includes inconsistent indentation and would likely cause the Python interpreter to fail):
....for item in filelist:
............if item.find(extension) != -1:
................snaplist.append(item)
This could easily be re-written in the Pythonic way:
....snaplist = [for item in filelist if item.find(extension) = -1]
Unfortunately, I could go on and on talking about things I don't like about this book. The bottom line is that I don't recommend it.

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Python: Create-Modify-Reuse is designed for all levels of Python developers interested in a practical, hands-on way of learning Python development. This book is designed to show you how to use Python (in combination with the raw processing power of your computer) to accomplish real-world tasks in a more efficient way. Don't look for an exhaustive description of the Python language––you won't find it. The book's main purpose is not to thoroughly cover the Python language, but rather to show how you can use Python to create robust, real-world applications.
In this respect, the goal is similar to foreign-language books that identify themselves as "conversational,” focusing on the vocabulary and concepts that people will need the most. Likewise, I focus specifically on the Python knowledge needed to accomplish practical, specific tasks. Along the way, you will learn to create useful, efficient scripts that are easy to maintain and enhance.
This book is for developers with some experience with Python who want to explore how to develop full-blown applications. It is also for developers with experience in other languages who want to learn Python by building robust applications. It is well-suited for developers who like to "learn by doing,” rather than exploring a language feature by feature. To get the most out of the book, you should understand basic programming principles.
Because this book is project-based, you can approach it in numerous ways. You can, of course, read it from cover to cover. Chapters 2 through 8 each cover a different project, so the chapters are independent of each other. However, because each chapter project is covered individually, there may be some overlap of information. I also sometimes refer to explanations of particular topics covered in previous chapters. This will help to reinforce important concepts.
The end of the book contains two appendixes. The first one is a listing of Python resources you can check out for more information. The second one will help you with installing additional components used in some of the examples.
This book starts with a basic overview of the Python language, designed for those familiar with other languages but new to Python. It is followed by several chapters, each of which describes a complete project that can be used as-is or modified and extended to suit your particular purposes. You'll find applications that access databases, take advantage of web technologies, and facilitate network communications, to name a few. In addition, and more important than the technologies you will be introduced to, you will learn how to use Python to solve real challenges. Following these chapters are two chapters that cover accessing operating system resources and debugging and testing, respectively.
Each project chapter contains complete instructions describing how to install and use the application, so you can actually see the program run as you learn how to construct and use it, including how the project was designed and prototyped. This book is intended to be both a reference guide and a learning aid, teaching you how to build solutions with Python and providing reference information on a wide variety of Python programming concepts.
It is hoped that this book will help you have fun with Python and build useful applications, and—unlike my experience with building a deck—without sore thumbs.
This book is framed around the code itself. This is because developers are typically looking for how to do something; and, as with many activities, you learn how to do something by watching how others do and trying it yourself. If you want to know how a for loop works, you'll find for loops in my code, but that's not the thrust of the book. Instead, this book shows you how to do things: how to build a content management system, how to build a test management system, how to set up a system for tracking customer follow-up, and so on. Along the way, you'll learn how to communicate with a SQL database, how to act as a web server or communicate with one, how to access operating system services, and more.
There are three basic components to the book:

Chapter 1 is a brief overview of the Python language.

Chapters 2–8 cover seven different programming projects, which illustrate various technologies and techniques available to Python developers.

Chapters 9–10 cover additional, advanced topics, which will help you as you build Python projects.

The project chapters have a consistent structure:

Overview: What does the application do?

Using the program

Design

How it all fits together

Modules involved

Code and code explanation

Module/class 1 explanation

Module/class 2 explanation

Minor code file explanation

Testing, including suggested tests

Modifying the project, including some suggested adaptations

Summary

Each project is designed with classes that can be reused and accessed for multiple purposes. This is one of the main benefits of object-oriented programming, so designing for reusability is a main focus of the book. The book contains the following chapters:
1. Python Basics
This chapter is a basic primer on the Python language, and it functions as either a quick tutorial for experienced programmers new to Python or a refresher for programmers with Python experience.
Part I: The Projects
2. Directory/File Snapshot Program
This project demonstrates how to interact with files, create and manipulate data structures, and provide user output. It also touches on code design issues to improve code maintainability. Often when installing or uninstalling software, or verifying changes to a file system, it can be valuable to take a "snapshot” of the files and directories, along with their size and last-modified time. The script introduced in this chapter does just that. This chapter also explores how to capture a directory listing into a Python list, and explains how to query this list for particular values.
3. DVD Inventory System
This project takes advantage of Python’s capability to access and manipulate data in a SQL database. The application enables multiple users to log in to a website that provides access to a DVD inventory database. Permissions are set such that some users can add, modify, or delete entries, whereas other users have read-only access to the data.
4. Web Performance Tester
This project shows how to communicate with a Python web server and retrieve information regarding how long it takes to receive requested items from the web server. Although writing Python programs to work on a single computer can be useful, the real power of Python can be seen when it is used to script communication between computers on a network. Most networks contain several web servers. A nice feature of Python is that it can act as a lightweight server for various Internet protocols, such as HTTP (web) and ftp. This application enables you to monitor performance of HTTP traffic on your network.
5. Customer Follow-Up System
This project shows how to present a web form to the user and retrieve data from it, how to automatically format and send e-mail through an SMTP server, and how to generate an HTML-formatted report. The task for the second example is to automatically generate a customer comments e-mail message based on information the customer enters in a form. It uses the mod_python Apache module to take the information entered in the HTTP form and then utilizes a Python script on the web server to send that information to an SMTP server for mail delivery.
6. Test Management/Reporting System
This project makes use of the unittest module to run tests against an existing application, and creates a framework for reporting test results. Testing is a vital process for developing software. This application enables users to run tests for a given piece of software, to list the previous test runs by date, to show test run results for any previously run tests, and to output the results of any test run as HTML for viewing in a web browser.
7. Version Management System
This project connects to a list of servers via telnet, checks the application version of a pre-set application list, and displays its results both as output and to a log file. Often, a system administrator needs to patch systems or ensure that systems have the latest application versions installed. This script is an easy way to accomplish that task. It makes use of Python’s capability to emulate a telnet client and log in to remote systems and perform functions on that remote system.
8. Content Management System
This project explores Plone, a popular content management system based on Python and Zope (a Python-based application server). Because Python is a very mature language, numerous applications have been built on top of it. A great thing about working with Python-based applications is that you get the benefit of a full-blown application but you can still use Python to configure and customize it.
Part II: Advanced Topics
9. Interacting with the Operating System
When writing scripts "in the real world,” often it is critical to be able to access services available through (and particular to) the operating system you happen to be on. For example, suppose you wanted to read or modify the Window Registry? Or you wanted to get the Linux process ID of a particular process that is running? Is such a thing even possible? Definitely—and this chapter shows you how.
10. Debugging and Testing
Because I am a software tester myself, testing is a subject that is certainly close to my heart. In...

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Organic and Chic: Cakes, Cookies, and Other Sweets That Taste as Good as They Look Review

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(More customer reviews)ORGANIC AND CHIC: CAKES, COOKIES, AND OTHER SWEETS THAT TASTE AS GOOD AS THEY LOOK by Sarah Magid is AMAZING! It is absolutely one of the most beautiful cookbooks that I have ever seen. As you can see, the cover photo is just filled with incredible looking desserts; and all of the pictures in the book are just like this. I would actually consider placing this cookbook on my coffee table because it's that gorgeous. Plus, I'd kind of like to have it handy because I really enjoyed looking at all of the recipes and decorating ideas.
Not only is this cookbook filled with beautiful pictures, but there are just loads of yummy-looking recipes. The book starts with recipes for cakes and cupcakes (along with frosting, curds, and filling recipes), then it has a section on cookies and bars, a section on reformed junk food, and one on farmers' market sweets. There is another section that will appeal to a lot of moms titled children's goodies which has easy, cute recipes geared towards little ones. The book ends with a wonderful chapter on Ms. Magid's design techniques along with step-by-step instructions.
I was pleasantly surprised by this cookbook not because of its recipes and photos, but rather because the instructions and explanations were so detailed and clear. The recipes and instructions for decorating were extremely easy-to-follow. Now making my cakes as gorgeous as the ones in the book might be a challenge, but I think that's because of my lack of skill and definitely not the fault of the instructions. And since I am not a regular consumer of organic foods, I loved how Ms. Magid explained the benefits of going organic as well as some name brands for organic baking goods. The last few pages of the cookbook also include explanations of various baking tools and how best to use them. I actually learned a great deal just by reading Ms. Magid's advice.

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Academic Advocacy for Gifted Children: A Parent's Complete Guide Review

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(More customer reviews)Barbara Jackson Gilman of the Gifted Development Center wrote this book to assist parents who need assistance in advocating for their gifted children. Because Barbara has worked closely with gifted children and their families for over 15 years, and parented her own gifted children, she knows firsthand that highly intelligent kids need support just as any other children who are outside the norm. She has seen the damage that may be done when gifted kids are not challenged in school, and has worked with many brilliant kids who tune out or give up and drop out of school. This book also contains heartfelt essays written by Quinn O'Leary. Quinn shares his reflections on growing up as a precocious boy who didn't often find adequate challenge in school.
Academic Advocacy for Gifted Children-A Parent's Complete Guide is a complete handbook on advocacy, but also a useful resource for parents who are striving to understand their gifted children. Barbara explains that gifted children often experience the world differently, and devotes a generously sized chapter one to this topic. Chapter two is titled, "What Do We Mean By Gifted?" and it covers asynchrony, personality traits, levels of giftedness, and more. Chapter three will be tremendously helpful to those who are still considering testing or assessment, as well as those who are trying to determine what exactly, their child's test results mean. Sometimes it is important to choose the right instrument for testing. Gilman states, "The WPPSI-III can be given to six-year-olds, but the WISC-IV is usually a better choice when the child is likely gifted." My son's score on the WPPSI taken at age six was in the gifted range, but nowhere near what we'd anticipated based upon his developmental milestones. I wish we'd known enough to request the WISC. School administrators tend to assess more kids who are at the lower end of the spectrum, and are not always familiar with how to do things with extremely bright children.
Chapter seven outlines varieties of gifted programs and educational options. Gilman is a proponent of homeschooling, especially for kids who are highly to profoundly gifted. She points out which school programs are more successful for gifted students, and which are not so successful. The further reading suggestions at the end of the chapter include some terrific books, articles, and websites related to gifted education.
The must-read chapter for parents who need help with school advocacy is chapter eight. The author carefully walks the reader through the steps necessary to get academic accommodations in place. She explains, " Parents should trust themselves to assess the level and urgency of their child's needs, and they can wisely consider various alternatives. Sometimes the best choice is to work with the school and the current teacher to provide accommodations; sometimes it is to move to another classroom, grade, or an entirely different school; and sometimes it is best to remove a child form school altogether. There is no benefit to teaching a child to graciously accept being held back. " If advocacy steps don't lead to an appropriate placement, she advises the reader on when to give up, how to look for a better school, and how to get started in homeschooling.
Gilman also interviewed several extraordinary teachers and talked to them at length about how they work with gifted students. These vignettes will be helpful if a parent is still wondering what it would be like to have their child in the care of a motivated teacher who actually enjoys working with bright students.

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Formerly titled Empowering Gifted Minds: Educational Advocacy That Works, this book is the definitive manual on gifted advocacy for gifted students. The author tells parents and teachers how to document a child s abilities to provide reasonable educational options year by year. This book provides imperative information on testing considerations, curriculum, successful programs, and planning your child s education. It is an essential guide.

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Fuzzing for Software Security Testing and Quality Assurance (Artech House Information Security and Privacy) Review

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(More customer reviews)The introduction to this book mentions its broken up history, being picked up and abandoned a couple times. It definitely shows in the writing, which is unfocused, choppy, and repetitive. Most of the first half is taken up with repetitive descriptions of the general software testing process. The second half contains a summary of one author's thesis on using evolutionary algorithms for fuzzing and the final author's use of various fuzzing tools to try to find hand-inserted vulnerabilities. While the latter half is better than the first, each topic is worthy of a single blog post. Given this book's price and the authors' reputations, I expected more.
At the same time, I read "Gray Hat Python" and it was enjoyable. Even though it had a much broader focus on other topics, it contained more hands-on info on fuzzing tools. I'm also interested in "Fuzzing: Brute Force Vulnerability Discovery", although I have not read it yet.
Don't waste your time on this book. Download the Sulley manual, read the slides from a few Blackhat talks, and you'll be at the state of the art for current fuzzing knowledge.

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"A fascinating look at the new direction fuzzing technology is taking -- useful for both QA engineers and bug hunters alike!" --Dave Aitel, CTO, Immunity Inc. Learn the code cracker's malicious mindset, so you can find worn-size holes in the software you are designing, testing, and building. Fuzzing for Software Security Testing and Quality Assurance takes a weapon from the black-hat arsenal to give you a powerful new tool to build secure, high-quality software. This practical resource helps you add extra protection without adding expense or time to already tight schedules and budgets. The book shows you how to make fuzzing a standard practice that integrates seamlessly with all development activities. This comprehensive reference goes through each phase of software development and points out where testing and auditing can tighten security. It surveys all popular commercial fuzzing tools and explains how to select the right one for a software development project. The book also identifies those cases where commercial tools fall short and when there is a need for building your own fuzzing tools.

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Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook: A Celebration of Traditional Southern Dishes that Made Miss Mary Bobo's--An American Legend Review

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(More customer reviews)Earlier write-ups about Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook intrigued me so I added it to my collection. Reading through it brought back memories of dishes I hadn't thought about -- much less made -- since my Georgia childhood. Then I started preparing them! I could swear that Miss Mary and my mother must have been bosom buddies, maybe even swapped recipes over a pitcher of homemade lemonade. From Southern Iced Tea to Sweet Deviled Eggs and Country Sausage and Gravy on Baking Powder Biscuits and from REAL Cream of Tomato Soup to Best Fruit Salad, the tastes of rich (read lots of cream and butter!)Southern food once again overwhelmed me. Not that every dish was cholesterol-laden -- try the sweet-sour mouth-tingling pleasure of Fresh Tomato Hash or vinegary Garden Fresh Cucumber Salad, for example. The breads are terrific -- and the main yeast one, Country Loaf Bread, adapted easily to the bread machine, producing a light, tasty, "mile-high" loaf. Fresh Zucchini Bread makes great toast and Our Favorite Raisin Bread, lightly glazed, was perfect with Cheese Soup and that wonderful fruit salad. The sauced Boarding House Meat Loaf pleased everyone, as did Our Famous Pork Ribs, Salmon Loaf, Southern Fried Catfish (AND Chicken, of course)and such beloved side dishes as Yankee Limas, Macaroni and Cheese, Southern Corn Pie and Creole Grits (even my grits-despising Minnesota-bred husband had seconds, Summer Squash Casserole and Our Best Baked Beans. Have only started to re-visit the delights of Southern desserts, sampling Old South Butter Cups and Fresh Strawberry Pie -- more to come! Obviously we can't continue at this rate with daily excursions into this wealth of memories and calories, but I plan to highlight at least one dinner a week with such! With thanks from a Southern California gal with happily-renewed memories of an earlier time and place!

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Discover the hallmark of Southern food and hospitality with Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook.For years, travelers have come to Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House, in Lynchburg, Tennessee, for the finest home-cooked meals anywhere.Two meats, an abundance of vegetables and side dishes, homemade breads, desserts, and beverages are all made with the same special care that Miss Mary Bobo used since 1908.This unique cookbook includes over 250 of Miss Mary's favorites still served today, including:-Hummingbird Cake -Spiced Grape Punch -Raisin Biscuits -Baked Chicken with Cream -Hot Potato Salad -Yankee Limas -And more! Give your guests the same delicious Southern dishes served at Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House.None are difficult to cook, but all are best when prepared by caring hands and served with friendship—a recipe that all boarding houses have found to be foolproof!

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Effective Methods for Software Testing Review

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(More customer reviews)We've been developing a testing group and I wanted a practical reference for software testing. This is not it. The text presumes you're in an extremely mature environment (CMM 3 or higher) and have requirements, design, adequate resources, etc., etc.. I think the book needs more examples, better organization, and practical solutions to the difficulties you're likely to face in managing large-scale testing organizations to be truly effective. If you want LOTS of arcane procedures, though, and are going to work for a gov't. agency--this is your book!

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Written by the founder and executive director of the Quality Assurance Institute, which sponsors the most widely accepted certification program for software testing
Software testing is a weak spot for most developers, and many have no system in place to find and correct defects quickly and efficiently
This comprehensive resource provides step-by-step guidelines, checklists, and templates for each testing activity, as well as a self-assessment that helps readers identify the sections of the book that respond to their individual needs
Covers the latest regulatory developments affecting software testing, including Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404, and provides guidelines for agile testing and testing for security, internal controls, and data warehouses
CD-ROM with all checklists and templates saves testers countless hours of developing their own test documentation

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

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