It has been a while since I have reviewed a manga book. This is one of several atypical educational books that use graphic art to help teach difficult concepts or illustrate the action. This is another wonderful entry in the “Manga Guide to…” series that I have been reviewing.

The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology follows the actions of a two students who failed their molecular biology class and have to take a special summer course. The story line is enjoyable and eases the reader’s entry into the topic rather than being a distraction.

The book covers all the main questions and topics you would expect: what is a cell, what are the common parts of a cell, how do cells combine to make various organisms, what are proteins and how do they function within a cell, what is DNA and what are genes and how do they work to express the information coded in them? My favorite part was chapter 5 which focuses on potential applications for everything discussed earlier and theorizes what the future may hold in the field.

I work in a software project that is helping biologists do research, including helping process the vast amounts of data that comes from genetic sequencing. As a result, I have become familiar with most of the content this book presents. I believe the book is accurate and it is clear. The story created to assist with that presentation is enjoyable as well. I have a seven year old daughter that is reading the book with great interest. Some of the science is above her grade level, but her attention remains fixed on the art and the story and she is absorbing some of it as she reads.

Overall, I would say the book is a success and recommend it without reservation.

Disclosure: I was given my copy of this book by the publisher as a review copy.

I started using Nginx as my primary web server a little over 18 months ago. At the time, I was using an underpowered server with low memory, and I wanted to replace Apache with something lighter. Even though I still love Apache for its power, configurability, and contributions to the open source world, there are times when other options are called for.

Nginx is an http server written in Russia intended for high traffic websites with a mind toward network scalability. It also works great as a lightweight replacement for Apache on my little server with 256MB RAM and one processor (that has since been upgraded, but I didn’t switch back). Even the day I had a post on the front page of of a popular social networking website, my little server withstood the onslaught without crashing.

The hard part of making the switch was finding documentation. As Nginx was birthed in Russia, I presume good documentation may be found in Russian, but since I don’t know the language that doesn’t help me. Finding documentation in English was a chore. Simple things were available at the main Nginx website and wiki (which have also grown and improved over time), but I had a difficult time finding detailed information about specific things I needed, such as translating Apache 301 rewrite rules into a format that would work in Nginx so that I could continue to use WordPress with pretty URLs.

Nginx HTTP Server is the first English book I have seen that compiles quality documentation and instruction for using Nginx. The information is current, detailed, and clear.

Some of the topics in the book seem to me to be a bit odd. There is a whole chapter dedicated to basic Linux shell commands and administration. Perhaps this will be useful for some, but I would imagine most people interested in Nginx will already know the topic. The second chapter discusses downloading source code, configuring, and installing the traditional way along with writing up a SysV init script for the service. I think that is good information to include. Strangely missing is information about installing Nginx from Linux distribution repositories, which is far easier, especially for the presumed newbies who needed the first chapter on shell commands.

The real value of this book is in chapters 3 – 8. Here we dive deep into configuration options, file syntax, modules, variables  and more. We learn how to set up PHP and Python with Nginx, which will make hosting most popular website software like WordPress, vBulletin, or anything built with Django fairly simple. Also discussed are similar methods of enabling other languages and platforms like Perl or Ruby on Rails.

The last two chapters are great for people coming over from Apache. One discusses how to use Nginx as a front end proxy to speed up a website running Apache. The other discusses how to make a full switch. Both include great comparisons and honest discussions of the strengths and differences between Apache and Nginx, including some good advice about when one may be a better choice than the other.

I have a lot of good things to say about this book, and I’m glad it exists. It will remain on my shelf as a useful reference for specific modules and configuration details that are not committed to memory. Comparing its contents to what I already know of Nginx, I believe the book to be technically accurate and current.

The book does have one glaring weakness, though. The quality of the writing is inconsistent. Most of the time, the text is adequately clear and communicates well. However, there is an annoying tendency throughout the book toward awkward grammar and odd phrasing, perhaps as often as one occurrence every two or three pages. This tells me two things: the book was probably written by someone who is not a native English speaker, which is not a big deal at all, and that the copy editing and proofreading was weak, which is a major failing. The initial cringe-worthy portion occurs in the very first paragraph of the Preface:

…for the past few month the same reports reveal the rise of a new competitor: Nginx, a lightweight HTTP server originating from Russia–pronounced “engine X”. There have been many interrogations surrounding the pronounced newborn. Why has the blogosphere become so effervescent about it?

Packt Publishing generally releases books on technology that are current and contain accurate information. The company focuses their efforts on very narrow, niche topics that they alone offer, and I like that. They also have a disappointing habit of being filled with this sort of writing. This book is no exception. Since, like many of their offerings, this is the only book on a topic that is interesting and useful to a specific group of people, I can’t help but recommend that people using or wanting to use Nginx take a look at the book. Still, I would love to see the language of their books rise to the level of their technical content. This would allow me a clearer conscience in recommending their products.
Disclosures: I was given my copy of Nginx HTTP Server free by Packt Publishing as a review copy. I am also a professional writer for a software project and have written for magazines, websites, and books for both O’Reilly Media and Pearson Education (both Prentice-Hall and Sams).

My book has been chosen for the Ebook deal of the day on the O’Reilly website for August 10, 2010.

VMware Cookbook – Only $9.99. Use code DDVMC http://oreil.ly/9Uw59z

I was recently interviewed by Ryan Arsenault, the Assistant Site Editor for SearchEnterpriseLinux.com for a feature on their website discussing the new fifth edition of The Official Ubuntu Book. You may read that interview here.

I wrote a short article for Talk Morocco about the ups and downs of living as a foreigner in Morocco. Talk Morocco is a website dedicated to discussions related to Morocco, its people, society and culture.

Not long ago I had the privilege of interviewing the authors of what I consider to be the best book for learning systems administration with Unix or Linux from a large, enterprise perspective.  This book is unusual in another way: it was published by Prentice-Hall and the forward was written by one of their competitors, Tim O’Reilly, the founder and head of O’Reilly Media. That says something.

My interview with the authors appeared today on InformIT’s website. Take a look.

I have a new job that I am pretty excited about. The one downside is that the amount of time I have available to dedicate to Ubuntu-related projects will be a bit more limited, especially as I get going. I’ll still be around, but I probably won’t be quite as quick to respond or as readily available.

I am thrilled that as of last week, I am the Senior Technical Documentation Specialist for iPlant Collaborative, a National Science Foundation funded project that is creating a new cyberinfrastructure to assist research in plant biology. My responsibilities include working with programmers and biologists to create the documentation for the project software, which requires some translation between those who are highly proficient in computer technology but not biology and those who are highly proficient in biology but not computer technology…which means I’m spending some time in intense study to learn about plant genetics. Fun stuff.

I will be speaking at the Phoenix VMUG User Conference at the invitation of the Phoenix Area VMware User Group in just a few days. They are giving away 300 copies of VMware Cookbook. If you are interested in spending a day with people who use VMware and/or you want to learn more about this virtualization platform, this will be a great opportunity to do so. If you can’t make this one, there will be others (but I’m only scheduled in Phoenix as it is close to where I live).

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is a history of the beginning, growth and rise of the use of computers by people outside of the big businesses and governments that worked to create them in proprietary silos. This 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy’s classic book retains its detailed and interesting chronicle of the events that brought computing power to the masses. It also records some of the problems, pitfalls, and failures along the way. Here you will find many names that computer lovers are sure to recognize from Bill Gates to Richard Stallman as well as many that are not as well known, but that deserve to have their victories recorded also.

I greatly appreciate that this book exists. To be honest, it wasn’t always a fun read. That isn’t a commentary on the quality of the writing, but rather on the ups and downs of the narrative. There were times when I found myself wishing I was there in the middle of the action and other times when I had difficulty knowing who to root for. There were still other moments when I found myself cringing as I read about events long past, wishing that different decisions had been made or disappointed at the actions and attitudes of geniuses.

I’m not going to spoil the book for anyone interested by giving out specific details. All I’ll say here is that the story begins with a bunch of model railroaders who love technology and who fall in love with a computer they discover they may access freely in an out of the way room in a building at MIT in the late 1950s. They took their love of piecing together technological gadgets in imaginative and creative ways (hacks) and applied it to this new tool / toy. The story follows their exploits and adventures through the 1960s en route to a second wave of hackers in Northern California in the 1970s who take the love home, creating machines on a smaller budget that could be used by ordinary people. Hot on their heels were another group of Californians who led a third wave, hacking software to do things never before dreamed of and leading the way to the commercialization of the computer. The book ends with a series of afterwards, one written when the book was first published in 1983, another written 10 years later, and another just added to this newly published edition. Each adds details and commentary to the history that were not known at the time of the original interviews and research.

If the history of hacking, free and open source software and the attitudes embodied in the current movement interest you, you will appreciate this book greatly.

Disclosures: I was given my copy of this book free by O’Reilly as a review copy, I also write for O’Reilly.

I have been doing some thinking about life, the universe and everything (so I know the big birthday is actually in two years…) and I decided I would share a few things I have learned on the journey thus far. Some you may recognize. I didn’t come up with any of these in a vacuum.

• Mercy is a better than judgement.
• No one is poor who has friends.
• It is better to leave the job and respect yourself than to endure for the sake of economics.
• Being able to look at yourself in the mirror is more important than what other people think.
• Making people angry for fun isn’t cool.
• Degrees and certificates mean very little. The truly educated continue to learn throughout life and don’t consider their education complete when they earn a piece of paper.
• Degrees and certificates are not bad things, though.
• People are more important than things.
• Helping is more important than hoarding.
• Compassion and love are better than being right.
• Accomplishing anything takes hard work.
• No one accomplishes anything without the help of others.
• The “self-made man” and “rugged individualism” are lies. No one is an island.
• Better to be a clay pot that contains beauty than a whitewashed tomb.
• Learning a new language opens the mind to be able to understand things that are inexpressible in other languages.
• Understanding is worth the pursuit, even though you will never understand everything.
• Conversation is better than coerced acquiescence.
• Listening is more difficult and more rewarding than speaking.
• Reading a lot is vital for anyone who desires to write well.
• Only those who listen and learn may become good teachers.
• Volume has nothing to do with correctness.
• Truth is not relative, but perceptions are. To express truth one must first understand the perceptions of the listener.
• Every culture is different, none are perfect, and all contain some beauty and truth worth absorbing.
• Hating or mistreating someone because of how they look, their accent or language, or where they grew up is dumb.
• Fear destroys more than anything other than pride.
• People will often say and do things while anonymous they would never do if their names were attached.
• Some opinions really are worth more than others and not every opinion is actually valid.
• Knowing which opinions are more valid is rarely easy, so listening to all of them is important.
• It is okay to be wrong if you are teachable because then being wrong doesn’t have to be destructive.
• Very few people are teachable because humility is difficult.
• Anyone who treats a waiter or waitress poorly is not a good person. You can learn a lot about someone by taking them out to lunch.
• Planting a tree to commemorate a big event doesn’t make as much sense as it used to since society is so much more mobile now. Getting a tattoo is a good substitute in those cases.
• Everybody gets grumpy when they are tired and/or hungry. Yelling at them doesn’t help. Feeding them and helping them rest does.
• Politeness is a skill that anyone can learn and says to others that you value them as people.
• It really is okay to do more than your fair share. It teaches others to be generous and starts a trend.