tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4088979.post112077416562284282..comments2023-10-16T06:06:25.012-04:00Comments on TaoSecurity Blog: My Criteria for Good Technical BooksRichard Bejtlichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13512184196416665417noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4088979.post-1122328049385607392005-07-25T17:47:00.000-04:002005-07-25T17:47:00.000-04:00My quick and dirty way of evaluating a technical b...My quick and dirty way of evaluating a technical book is by looking at the index. It tells a lot (as you mention) about the content but also about usability; this comes in handy especially when evaluating reference books.<BR/><BR/>My golden book: "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill.<BR/><BR/>(I've written more about this method on my weblog:<BR/>http://www.saardrimer.com/wordpress/?p=32 )Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4088979.post-1120916872429090062005-07-09T09:47:00.000-04:002005-07-09T09:47:00.000-04:00Shizzle, Richard,I don't see my book anywhere on y...Shizzle, Richard,<BR/><BR/>I don't see my book anywhere on your list! ;-(<BR/><BR/>Is it because I do Windows? ;-)<BR/><BR/>H. Carvey<BR/>"Windows Forensics and Incident Recovery"<BR/>http://www.windows-ir.com<BR/>http://windowsir.blogspot.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4088979.post-1120869559560144642005-07-08T20:39:00.000-04:002005-07-08T20:39:00.000-04:00Right on! Those are four of my biggest, and I'd a...Right on! Those are four of my biggest, and I'd also add: <BR/><BR/>Zealot authors - Nothing irks me like a zealot of any type. The kind of person that doesn't see anything lacking about the specific technology at hand (if it's specific to some commercial or open source product), and thinks it's the <I>only</I> solution for the problem it intends to address. The type of book that reads more like marketing material than good technical information far too frequently. <BR/><BR/>Of course we all have our biases, especially when putting in as much time on a specific technology as is required for a book, but many authors would be well served by consciously avoiding this. Broadening their horizons through experience with competing products, keeping an open mind and clearly seeing the advantages of the competition, and understanding there is never a single product that is best fit for every circumstance would give many authors a better perspective. <BR/><BR/>Grammatical errors - They really bug me. I'm the type of person that spots and is bothered by most every grammatical error in a publication, to the point that I get caught up on them. Not a quality most of us in this industry have though, so I wouldn't say it's a big deal overall. <BR/><BR/><BR/>Originality is the number one thing I really like about Tao of NSM. A bit of the introductory material is repetitive in topic from many other security books, but I didn’t skip it like I usually do because it brought a fresh viewpoint, and explained things differently from any other security book I've read. Richard brought a great perspective to these things, which definitely made them worthwhile. Even if you're familiar with these topics, it's nice to read another perspective. After that point, I didn't have to deal with yet another thorough explanation of TCP/IP basics, the OSI model, etc. etc. The Tao of NSM is up there as one of the most original books I’ve ever read. Not material you'll find in any one of a few dozen other security books, and not material you can find yourself on Google. Truly a valuable book, nice work Richard. It also seemed to have far fewer grammatical errors than most technical books. :)Chris Buechlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14915136057838042206noreply@blogger.com