2004.11_Books-Wi-Fi Toys, Php5, and Openoffice Org Writer.pdf

REVIEWS

Books

Book Reviews

Wi-Fi Toys

From the ExtremeTech collection of

books, this manual is a collection of fif-

teen different electronic projects that are

all linked because they use some form of

wireless hardware. Unfortunately, on

closer examination, the

first four projects turn out

to be guides on how to

build different antennas

for your wireless activi-

ties. Don’t be put off by

this though.

These first hundred

pages are useful in that

they provide the basic

knowledge for using radio

signals. The paper-clip

antenna walk through is

the most fascinating.

Throughout the text, photographs are

used to show you what your own project

should be aiming for. It is possible to

skip this section, but luckily, there are

enough formulas and tables to capture

some of that physics experimentation

class and draw your curiosity in.

The second section of the book deals

with war driving. The first so-called pro-

ject is fitting out your car to allow you to

take part. The next

two projects concern

Windows software.

The first is about tak-

ing readings while

the last is how to

draw a map of your

results.

Finally we get to

some real wireless

projects. We are

taught how to con-

vert a standard access

point into something

that can survive outside. This is followed

by what I originally though was a theo-

retical project on making a solar

powered repeater. Not much use for

those of us in cloudy environments, but

the style is useful in explaining not just

how but why.

Creating a free wireless hotspot

involved Red Hat 9.x so all is not wasted.

Finally this section goes on to describe

WiFi games.

The final section has four real projects.

How to turn your TiVo into WiFi, Long

distance Wireless links, Car to car video

conferencing and a wireless picture

frame.

Fifteen projects it isn’t. A useful check-

list of things to consider by someone

who has actually done them, it is.

Long distance WiFi links and free

access hotspots make the book useful.

The rest is either a nice physics refresher

or pleasant – this is what we did – infor-

mation.

■

Mike Outmesguine

408 pages

Wiley Publishing, 0-7645-5894-3

£16.99, US$ 24.99, EUR 21.80

Learning PHP5

The book clearly points out that it is

intended as an introduction to PHP5 and

is not designed to temper your skills and

increase your earning power as a web

builder. Any PHP4 programmer will find

little in the way of useful information as

classes are not covered in great depth.

If you are, however, considering PHP

as a means to building interactive web-

sites for fun and profit, then this book is

a no nonsense guide that delivers each

snippet of information in small bite-sized

chunks. This makes learning quite fast

and does not give the reader time to be

bored.

After the customary first chapter,

which describes what PHP is and what

its benefits are, the book follows a stan-

dard layout, with each chapter covering

a major topic. The chapters include dis-

cussions of topics such as functions and

databases, with small exercises at the

end to allow you to test yourself on

whether you really understood the infor-

mation.

The first half of the book deals with

the basics, and as such it is necessary to

read these thoroughly. The second half

has a more practical feel such as cookies

and parsing documents.

The chapter on storing information in

databases does deserve a special men-

tion. This chapter

is informative, and

takes the time to

explain good data-

base management

techniques. The

database topic is

especially impor-

tant in discussions

of PHP to prevent a

novice programmer

from making fun-

damental errors

that will later on

lead to downfall. PearDB is used as the

abstraction layer and MySQL as the

engine.

As with many books, the final chapter

hints at what is technically possible with

the language and is designed to fire your

imagination as well as enthusiasm.

For the novice PHP5 programmer, the

book lends itself to a gentle but compe-

tent guide that perhaps leads

the reader to the author’s,

PHP Cookbook, also by

O’Reilly. For anyone else, the

book misses some opportu-

nities to convert PHP4 users

and explain a little more on

what makes good PHP cod-

ing.

■

David Sklar

368 pages

O’Reilly, 0-596-00560-1

£20.95, US$ 29.95, EUR 29.00

November 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

Books

REVIEWS

OpenOffice.org Writer

Similar to the author’s previous Taming

OpenOffice.org Writer 1.1, this book is a

succinct, useful guide to getting the most

from your favourite free alternative to

Microsoft Word.

The book is aimed at anyone who has

used a word processor, but does seem to

focus on technical and professional writ-

ers. The section on moving over from

Microsoft Word is actually left to the end

of the book, and shows that the applica-

tion is not just an alternative but as good

if not better.

The book starts with a section on con-

figuring and adjusting OpenOffice to suit

your personal needs rather than relying

on the default configuration. Each step is

explained in detail with useful tips high-

lighted.

As you would expect, actual usage is

explained along with page layout and

styles in enough detail to make this a

valuable read. Using master and subdoc-

uments are useful techniques to learn

if you spend any amount of time in

front of a word processor and these

are adequately covered,

although the section on

using fields did tend to

stumble and felt a little

disjointed.

Creating indexes and

bibliographies, can be a

chore at the best of

times, but the section

handling this topic, pro-

vided useful pointers to

make it quicker, although

still a chore.

This book is about

word processing and not

just text editing and as such it lends con-

siderable weight to options such as

tables, templates and graphics.

The ten pages at the end on tips and

tricks is worth rereading a few times as

they will help to speed up the time you

spend controlling your tasks, letting you

concentrate on getting the words right,

which after all is the important thing.

I was very surprised

with the depth of

knowledge that the

author put into this

book. It was not just a

rewrite of the online

manual or a step

through of the menu

functions. I would

recommend this for

anyone who uses the

OpenOffice.org suite

and I can only hope

that the author

considers adding the

missing suite applications as future

volumes.

■

Jean Hollis Weber

234 pages, incl. CD-ROM

O’Reilly, 0-596-00826-0

£17.50, US$ 24.95, EUR 24.00

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