Book Reviews

Recently Read – 02/17/2010

Posted on 17. Feb, 2010
Categories: Book Reviews, IT Project Failures, IT Projects, Social Media

1

Microsoft, social networking, the IT-Business chasm, and Google Wave are just a few highlights from the blogosphere this week. I also have to recommend an incredible book about tennis.

Book Review: Googled by Ken Auletta

Posted on 29. Dec, 2009
Categories: Book Reviews

2

If you’re merely looking for a short, simple story of how Google became so big, then you might want to pass on Googled. If you’re up for a book that challenges core assumptions held by so many and asks troubling questions about all things digital, then dive in. You won’t be disappointed. I promise.

Continue Reading

Book Review: Eating the Dinosaur

Posted on 22. Dec, 2009
Categories: Book Reviews, Movies

0

I often take a much needed respites from the world of technology, even though I consider myself a “tech boy” and proselytize the benefits of new toys and applications. Along these lines, I recently engulfed Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman, a collection of twelve disparate essays about a wide range of topics from pop culture to (of course) technology.

Continue Reading

Book Review: Trust Agents

Posted on 17. Nov, 2009
Categories: Book Reviews, Social Media

0

Brogan and Smith detail the many ways that one can use the Internet in general–and social media specifically–to establish a web presence, promote your wares, and build a brand. They’re justifiably big on collaboration. Trust Agents describes how one can “build an Army” using both technology and networking tools

Continue Reading

Book Review: Free by Chris Anderson

Posted on 11. Nov, 2009
Categories: Book Reviews, Technology

1

I try to stay on top of influential books these days, especially as summer gives way to fall and colder weather limits my non-computer activities. I recently read Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price. To cut to the chase, it is an exceptionally well-written and researched book.

Continue Reading

Change, Vested Interests, and Creative Destruction

Posted on 04. Nov, 2009
Categories: Book Reviews, Writing

1

I have long been obsessed with words and phrases. Some of my favorite comedians (such as Dennis Miller and the late great George Carlin) had an affinity for words that left me envious as a kid. One phrase that has stuck in my mind over the last two decades is creative destruction, I have read two books recently have touched on this notion that as technology giveth, technology taketh away.

Continue Reading

Book Review: Planet Google by Randall Stross

Posted on 07. Oct, 2009
Categories: Book Reviews

1

Stross is also not afraid to call a spade a spade: he unapologetically calls Google out for some missteps over privacy, copyright infringement, and other snafus. His writing style is very digestible and I never felt lost reading about more technical concepts, such as cloud computing, indexing the web, or Google’s legendary algorithm.