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Category: General

Learn to Program with Minecraft Plugins

My kids love playing Minecraft. I run a server for them. I would love for any of my kids to learn to program (and also to take over the server admin duties from me). This book immediately struck me as having great potential. Learn to Program with Minecraft Plugins: Create Flying Creepers and Flaming Cows in Java starts slowly, but it says it is going to start slowly. As it must, the book begins with coverage of topics like installation and configuration. This is the only dull part of the whole book, and I don’t think that could be helped.…

Fire in the Valley, Third Edition

This is the first edition of this book to be published by Pragmatic Bookshelf, which I believe is an excellent fit as a company for the book’s content. The second edition was published back in 2000 by a publisher who specializes these days in a different sort of content. Plus, I love The Pragmatic Programmers series by Pragmatic Bookshelf and this history contained here belongs in this series. Good move for both the authors and the publisher. Fire in the Valley, Third Edition is subtitled The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer, and for good reason. The book is…

Ubuntu Books I Wrote in 2014

Just in time for the end of the year holidays… I have a new edition of Ubuntu Unleashed 2015 Edition (affiliate link), now available for preorder. This book is intended for intermediate to advanced users. I also failed to mention on this blog the newest edition of The Official Ubuntu Book (another affiliate link), now in its eighth edition. The book continues to serve as a quality introduction for newcomers to Ubuntu, both the software and the community that surrounds it.

The LEGO Neighborhood Book

LEGO. There, now I have your attention. The LEGO Neighborhood Book is another addition to the series of cool LEGO books published by No Starch Press. In it, you find a set of instructions for building anything from small features like furniture or traffic lights to large things like buildings to populate an entire neighborhood. Unlike the creations of my youth, these buildings are detailed structures. Gone are the standard, boxy things I used to make. Replacing them are fancy window frames, building mouldings, and seriously beautiful architectural touches. In fact, many of those features are discussed and described, giving a…

Linux Distro for Kids?

Short, informal survey. Feel free to comment here or via private messages/email. I may not respond to all comments, but will read with appreciation any you make. What is your favorite Linux distribution that is intended for use by kids, say anywhere between the ages of 8 and 18? If you have more than one, feel free to name each. Why do you like it? If your preference for kids is a standard distro and not one intended for that audience, which is it and why?

Seeing from Another Point of View

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. –To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch These aren’t purely my thoughts. I’m sure I read something somewhere that sparked them, but I don’t have a link or citation, so I’m just being honest that I am not the source of all that I have written here, although I am using my words. Oh, and great book. I’ve been thinking about this. I love the idea and I will always strive to learn about…

Every Page is Page One

Just about all of you reading this know that I am a technical writer. One of the things I do to keep up to date with the latest trends in the field is read. I read books, articles, blogs, whatever I can find that relates. I especially enjoy Mark Baker’s blog, Every Page is Page One. Baker consistently posts articles that make me think, and in good ways. When I heard he has a book out, I contacted the publisher immediately. As a side note, Baker’s publisher, XML Press, consistently produces books that I find useful. Every one I have…

Ubuntu Planet Feed Changed

For years the main feed for my blog has been posted to Ubuntu Planet. Early on, most of my posts were strictly Ubuntu-related. That hasn’t been true for a long time. I changed my feed today in the Ubuntu Planet configuration and starting from whenever the cron job on that server reads the new config file, only posts with a specific tag should appear on the feed. Everything that has appeared on Planet Ubuntu is also tagged, so I can keep track. I hope this doesn’t cause a huge posting flood when the new config is read…if so, apologies in…

American Nations

I don’t review everything I read. Not by a long shot. I generally have 3 or 4 books being read at the same time stashed in different places in my house. Today’s book is one that I bought and that I think deserves a wider audience. It begins by separating the idea of nations from states. Nations are essentially groups of people who share a common culture, ethnic language, or historical experience. States can be made up of nations, as in the nation-states of historic France or Turkey, but nations can exist outside of states, such as the Kurdish or…

The LEGO Adventure Book, Volume 2

One more post before the holidays. I reviewed the first volume in this series just about a year ago in a post that covered three LEGO-related books. The LEGO Adventure Book, Volume 2 is another hardcover book. This time, the volume includes a series of about 40 step-by-step building guides that are similar to what is provided when you buy a LEGO kit and pictures of many more built models for further inspiration. What I said about the first book in the series also applies here, so I’ll start off by quoting myself: The illustrations in this book are stellar and…