Best Human-Computer Interaction
User experience (UX) strategy requires a careful blend of business strategy and UX design, but until now, there hasn’t been an easy-to-apply framework for executing it.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The 4 tenets are a regular part of my professional vernacular and I can now verbalize and present ideas in specific and meaningful ways to businesses who often undervalue UX."
"The practical, real-world examples and "how-tos" made even this experienced UX professional grab my highlighter and comb through every page."
"The best strategy to read this book is to pick up a hypothesis, if you don't already have one, and evolve it to a business plan step by step by this book."
"As someone attempting to learn the fundamentals of design and lean product development, this book gave me a clear understanding of the framework for solid UX and business strategy."
"Jaime's book is a bible for me as a new grad aspiring a career in UX."
"It helps me (no experience in UX) walk the whole process of what a UX strategist should do."
"A takeaway that I found especially valuable was the advice to focus on only 2 to 3 key experiences when creating a prototype."
"I am new to ux design field and this book helped me clarifying all the confusing terms in most clear and simple ways."
As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. Here he looks to neurological science to gauge the organic impact of computers, citing fascinating experiments that contrast the neural pathways built by reading books versus those forged by surfing the hypnotic Internet, where portals lead us on from one text, image, or video to another while we’re being bombarded by messages, alerts, and feeds. And not only are we reconfiguring our brains, we are also forging a “new intellectual ethic,” an arresting observation Carr expands on while discussing Google’s gargantuan book digitization project.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The development of that magnificent resource for the mind, the Internet, has put us at a turning point in human history. The development of all the tools of the mind has provided turning points and in making his case Nicholas Carr takes us through what happened to us when we went from clay to papyrus to paper and from tablets to scrolls to books. Give a man a hammer for a lifetime’s work and his body shapes to effectively drive nails. Take away his pen and give him a typewriter with a ball and his prose turns from fluid to staccato. 1) The brain, confronted with a glowing screen and the ability to hypertext its way from one interruption to another across the universe of knowledge from what its buddy in Australia thinks of rutabagas, to the spelling of rutabagas to the history of rutabagas to dishes that can be prepared from rutabagas leaves the brain sliding from one fact of surface interest to another fact even less useful, until it occurs to the brain to pursue the prompt on the pop-up menu and check the weather and get off of this slide onto the weather channel where a five minute video on playful seals on San Francisco Bay can be watched for free which does remind the brain that it could slide over to Facebook and find out if anyone “liked” the picture of the family cat posted an hour ago. Just as the carpenter’s arm grew it muscles to deal effectively with the hammer the brain changes to succeed in a slippy slidey world of itty bitty bits of knowledge intended to interest momentarily and then disappear. A “decider?” Or will it in panic seek the next button to push, even if that button bears the label “Self Destruct?”. According to Time magazine this is happening now in the Silicon Valley high schools; kids depressed and without a sense of agency pushed around by the ripples on the surface of the Internet are choosing to leave life. With the same alacrity that he or she pursued the prompt to watch the seals he or she may “decide” it is time to end this. 2) I discovered my wife of the last forty-three years with whom I have raised two children and now five grandchildren with much happiness when while sitting on her front lawn, I seriously told her my goals in life. Yet this brain of mine sorted through whatever book-formed channels it had and locked in immediately on her as the “one,” the antidote to the man who takes himself too seriously. Distant memories of your mother’s tears, your father’s embrace, your sisters admiration and your little brother’s needs will be crowded out of the brain, and I doubt if you will find them in Internet land either. (A sign of the times is that people who used to write books no longer can read them."
"This was a solid book."
"If you want to go beyond a partial understanding of what's gone so wrong with society today and why it looks so different than just 15 years ago this is a great read."
"In this short but informative, thought-provoking book, Nicholas Carr presents an argument I've long felt to be true on a humanist level, but supports it with considerable scientific research. In fact, he speaks as a longtime computer enthusiast, one who's come to question what he once wholeheartedly embraced ... and even now, he takes care to distinguish between the beneficial & detrimental aspects of the Internet. The mind that develops through slow, quiet contemplation, mulling over ideas in their entirety, and growing as a result? Not unlike the Red Queen commenting that it takes all of one's energy & speed to simply remain in one place while running. Yet the digital world constantly makes us break it into discrete, interchangeable bits that hurtle us forward so rapidly & inexorably that we simply don't have time to stop & think. The danger is that we'll not only willingly, even eagerly, wear those saddles, but that we'll come to desire them & buckle them on ever more tightly, until we feel naked without them."
New information on content strategy for web sites, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media make this once again the only book you need to own to optimize your writing for the web. A linguist by training, Ginny is passionate about understanding how people think, how people read, how people use web sites - and helping clients write web content that meets web users' needs in the ways in which they work. Ginny's work and leadership in the usability and plain language communities have earned her numerous awards, including the Rigo Award from the ACM Special Interest Group on the Design of Communication and the Alfred N. Goldsmith Award from the IEEE Professional Communication Society. Ginny is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication and a past member of the Board of Directors of both the Society for Technical Communication and the Usability Professionals' Association.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I feel so much more confident making design recommendations at work after reading this book."
"Great instruction."
"Because it's the best stuff out there, expensive but worth it, and you'll always want it again later...Letting Go of the Words is like the filet mignon of how to write for the web."
"Letting Go of the Words is a brilliant, easy-to-read book that explains how you can write usable copy for projects of any size. Information pages. She also gives useful advice on. * Focusing on your essential message. * Making your design easy to use. * Using lists and tables. * Using headings and illustrations effectively. * Writing links that get clicked, and perhaps most importantly, * Fitting this all into a process that allows you to set expectations and meet deadlines."
"i wish every website designer would read this book."
"This is well written and helpful- whether you're a novice or have been writing for the web for a while."
"The book isn't about how to write great copy, its more about web content from a usability and consumer experience perspective."
"Together with Roger C. Parker's One Minute Designer I'm helping my organization write and design. easy-to-read web and print publications. Danny Jaco. Creative Specialist. Just Say YES - Youth Equipped to Succeed. On Facebook -- "Youth Equipped to Succeed"."
Best Computer Simulation
Data science is little more than using straight-forward steps to process raw data into actionable insight. And in Data Smart , author and data scientist John Foreman will show you how that's done within the familiar environment of a spreadsheet. Plus, spreadsheets are a vendor-neutral place to learn data science without the hype. "When Mr. Foreman interviewed for a job at my company, he arrived dressed in a 'Kentucky Colonel' kind of suit and spoke about nonsensical things like barbecue, lasers, and orange juice pulp. After reading this book, you too will learn how to use math and basic spreadsheet formulas to improve your business or, at the very least, how to trick senior executives into hiring you as their data scientist." This book shows you the significant data science techniques, how they work, how to use them, and how they benefit your business, large or small. Artificial intelligence using the general linear model, ensemble methods, and naive Bayes Clustering via k-means, spherical k-means, and graph modularity Mathematical optimization, including non-linear programming and genetic algorithms Working with time series data and forecasting with exponential smoothing Using Monte Carlo simulation to quantify and address risk Detecting outliers in single or multiple dimensions Exploring the data-science-focused R language. As an analytics consultant, John has created data science solutions for The Coca-Cola Company, Royal Caribbean International, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Dell, the Department of Defense, the IRS, and the FBI.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I chose Foreman's book to help with this task for a number of reasons: a) Data Science is a hot area and my company does have a Data Science group, b) I have lots of data experience under my belt - I felt that it would be nice for once to get some useful information from the data, and c) I have a really good Excel background - so I figured that Foreman's approach would be perfect for me - little did I know that I would seriously add to my Excel bag of tricks. Speaking of learning, by the end of the you will have learned important concepts in "machine learning" and I believe that you will be ready for the next step. Read Foreman's book and follow along with him in working through the Excel spreadsheets. This is a first step in getting comfortable with Machine Learning. Take the Coursera courses: 1) Machine Learning Foundations: A Case Study Approach, and 2) Machine Learning: Regression. C. Now you are ready for: An Introduction to Statistical Learning: with Applications in R (Springer Texts in Statistics) This book is also available for free by the authors - check online."
"Unlike "Moneyball" books, Data Smart contains enough practical information to actually start performing analyses. And unlike books about R or the distributed data blah-blah du jour, all the examples use good old Microsoft Excel. It's goal isn't to "revolutionize" your business with million-dollar software, but rather to make incremental improvements to processes with accessible analytic techniques. But I can attest that the author makes difficult mathematical concepts accessible with his quirky sense of humor and gift for metaphor. After a couple of hours with the clustering chapters, which include illuminating diagrams and spreadsheet formulas, I felt like I had a good handle on the concepts, and would feel comfortable implementing the ideas in Excel -- or any other language, for that matter. 8) can reduce waste with better demand planning. It may take some creativity to figure out how to apply the methods to your own business processes, but all of the techniques are "tried and true" in the sense of being widely deployed at large companies with big analytics budgets and teams of Ph.D.'s on staff. The techniques aren't really cutting-edge -- in fact, most have been around for decades -- but to my knowledge this is the first time they've been presented in a way that Excel-slinging business analysts can apply the methods without needing her own team of operations researchers and data scientists. If you're not sure whether the book's sophistication is on par with your own skills, you can download a complete sample chapter (as well as example spreadsheets) from the author's website."
Best Computer Engineering
The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years." My co-authors of that study, and our executive secretary, Robert L. Patrick, were invaluable in bringing me back into touch with real-world large software projects. In preparing my retrospective and update of The Mythical Man-Month, I was struck by how few of the propositions asserted in it have been critiqued, proven, or disproven by ongoing software engineering research and experience. In hopes that these bald statements will invite arguments and facts to prove, disprove, update, or refine those propositions, I have included this outline as Chapter 18. For a wonderful willingness to share views, to comment thoughtfully on drafts, and to re-educate me, I am indebted to Barry Boehm, Ken Brooks, Dick Case, James Coggins, Tom DeMarco, Jim McCarthy, David Parnas, Earl Wheeler, and Edward Yourdon. I thank Gordon Bell, Bruce Buchanan, Rick Hayes-Roth, my colleagues on the Defense Science Board Task Force on Military Software, and, most especially, David Parnas for their insights and stimulating ideas for, and Rebekah Bierly for technical production of, the paper printed here as Chapter 16. Analyzing the software problem into the categories of essence and accident was inspired by Nancy Greenwood Brooks, who used such analysis in a paper on Suzuki violin pedagogy. Two persons' contributions should be especially cited: Norman Stanton, then Executive Editor, and Herbert Boes, then Art Director. Boes developed the elegant style, which one reviewer especially cited: "wide margins, and imaginative use of typeface and layout."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Although Dr. Brooks writes specifically about his experiences with software development, I feel that a reader could easily replace references to programming or software with the more generic "project" to imagine how Brooks' experiences might apply to their own work."
"Fred Brooks was a software engineer at IBM for some decades and later chair of the UNC CS department."
"Other topics include the distinction between the "essential" and "accidental" elements of software design; the distinction between building a computer program vs. designing a "programming a systems product" (and the ninefold difference in complexity and time between the two); the quest for software engineering's elusive "silver bullet"; the importance of documentation; the surprisingly small percentage of time that actual writing of code occupies on the timeline of a typical software-development project (as contrasted with time needed for testing and debugging); large teams vs. small "surgical teams" (and why the latter isn't always the answer for all projects); the "buy versus build" dilemma; and many others."
"Classic book which is proven by time."
"It contains four additional chapters: No Silver Bullet, yet another influential essay by Brooks that was not in the original edition; an overview of all his points (the entire book) in an easy-to-digest format; his thoughts 20 years on from writing the original, and how the industry has changed in that time; and finally, his responses to various criticism he has received over the years specifically in response to the "No Silver Bullet" essay."
Best Computer Systems Analysis & Design
This is the eBook version of the printed book. Essential Information about Algorithms and Data Structures. The latest version of Sedgewick’s best-selling series, reflecting an indispensable body of knowledge developed over the past several decades. Full treatment of data structures and algorithms for sorting, searching, graph processing, and string processing, including fifty algorithms every programmer should know. New Java implementations written in an accessible modular programming style, where all of the code is exposed to the reader and ready to use. Algorithms are studied in the context of important scientific, engineering, and commercial applications. Clients and algorithms are expressed in real code, not the pseudo-code found in many other books. Engages reader interest with clear, concise text, detailed examples with visuals, carefully crafted code, historical and scientific context, and exercises at all levels. Develops precise statements about performance, supported by appropriate mathematical models and empirical studies validating those models. Robert Sedgewick has been a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University since 1985, where he was the founding Chairman of the Department of Computer Science.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Excellent book for beginners and advance students of computer science."
"It's a bit hard but example codes gives better understanding for the concepts."
"Great book for studying the common algorithms."
"Book contains very details analysis and code for various algorithms."
"Great book if used along w the booksite."
"Great book."
"Great book on algorithms."
"Very good to understand the internals of the algorithms and their performance."
Best Artificial Intelligence
Explore the machine learning landscape, particularly neural nets Use scikit-learn to track an example machine-learning project end-to-end Explore several training models, including support vector machines, decision trees, random forests, and ensemble methods Use the TensorFlow library to build and train neural nets Dive into neural net architectures, including convolutional nets, recurrent nets, and deep reinforcement learning Learn techniques for training and scaling deep neural nets Apply practical code examples without acquiring excessive machine learning theory or algorithm details. He was also a founder and CTO of Wifirst from 2002 to 2012, a leading Wireless ISP in France, and a founder and CTO of Polyconseil in 2001, the firm that now manages the electric car sharing service Autolib'.Before this he worked as an engineer in a variety of domains: finance (JP Morgan and Société Générale), defense (Canada's DOD), and healthcare (blood transfusion).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Even though I come from a strong theoretical background, I have to say one must do hands on tinkering to be able to solve one's own problem successfully. There are pieces of information hard to find somewhere else, and I have spent hundreds to thousands to attend workshops. I was hoping Keras, a high level api that enables fast experiments, is covered."
"I got this book for the deep learning portion (about half of the overall book length), and was shocked at the clarity of the conceptual explanations and code implementations."
"I'm only giving it four stars because despite the content itself being great, the print does have some issues like missing diagrams (see attached pictures)."
"The choice to start with Scikit-Learn was interesting, but makes sense on some level while he's introducing the more basic machine learning concepts. Simple machine learning techniques like logistic regression, data conditioning, dealing with training, validation, test set. Straightforward setup instructions, pretty intelligible explanation of the basic concepts (variables, placeholders, layers, etc.). The example code is quite good, and the notebooks are quite complete and seem to work well, with maybe a few tweaks and additional setup for some. Even just having a section on reinforcement learning is very rare in a book of this style, and Geron's samples and explanations are really solid."
"As with most technical books, it depends on where in the learning curve you are."
Best Software Engineering
Using the Smarter Way to Learn method, you actually learn HTML/CSS, you don’t just read about it. Read the reviews that call The Smarter Way of learning fun, involving, frustration-free, and confidence-building. Then, if you want to go beyond reading about HTML & CSS and actually learn the skills, do it the smarter way.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I did learn a long ago version of HTML from the ground up, but since then, I haven't studied the newer versions in detail, just used the features without really exploring all their details. Not only do the exercises make learning fun, they reinforce the material right away so it sinks in deeper."
"I purchased the book, A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS, and then to my surprise it came also on my Samsung Galaxy Tablet for free."
"As the course progresses, material from previous chapters is used repeatedly in the chapter tests so that the material remains fresh. After completing the javascript course, I was working towards an exam in Mongo DB and I was able to put my new-found javascript knowledge to great use for that class."
"Mark Myers' method of getting what can be--at times--difficult information into a format that makes it exponentially easier to consume, truly understand, and synthesize into real-world application is beyond anything I've encountered before."
"I definitely recommend this book to those looking for a great learning experience, especially to those who struggle with the average educational read."
"I am amazed at what Mark Myers has been able to accomplish with his Smarter Way to Learn books. Specifically, in the HTML and CSS book, he has given you exercises at the end of each chapter so you can build your own (admittedly ugly) webpage. Mr. Myers has been helpful throughout, whenever I needed guidance or had a question."
"Thanks Mark, for writing this book."
Best Data Modeling & Design
Written by renowned data science experts Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett, Data Science for Business introduces the fundamental principles of data science, and walks you through the "data-analytic thinking" necessary for extracting useful knowledge and business value from the data you collect. "This timely book says out loud what has finally become apparent: in the modern world, Data is Business, and you can no longer think business without thinking data. Read this book and you will understand the Science behind thinking data." "A great book for business managers who lead or interact with data scientists, who wish to better understand the principles and algorithms available without the technical details of single-disciplinary books." What you need to know about data mining and data-analytic thinking.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"- It is *not* your standard "management" title on the cool tech du jour available at airport stands and meant to be read in one sitting (buzzwords, hype and overly enthusiastic statements making up for the dearth of actual content)."
"Example : A leading Trucking company used Data mining skill to predict which part of the truck is going to break next instead of replacing it at specific intervals, a Leading insurer predicted those who will complete their antibiotic course based on their home ownership history. If this type of stories and scope interests you, read the book "Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think". It is a text book and authors have taken lot of care so general audience can also benefit from it, and also not to dilute it's textbook value. When you are finished with the book, you should have a fairly good understanding of data science, For example, what type of analysis that needs to be done to identify. A. ( When the target is clear, if the person will default on his loan). E. What is the significance of entropy in Data Science ? G. Don't get defensive, be comfortable when your colleague sprinkles words like like Classification ,regression, Similarity Matching, Clustering, Modelling, Entropy etc. You can get real life examples to work on in coursesolve dot org ( ex: Analyze the sleep cycle). 4. I signed up for Amazon elastic map reduce which has a higher level abstraction (for developers it is the difference between using sqlplus vs TOAD). Try to be the "umbilical cord that looks for a stomach to plug ", look for a mentor, look for opportunity in your firm or elsewhere to grow your Data scientist skills."
"The institution strategy and goals need to be reflected in the procedures used to analyse the data base of the institution and the determination as to what data is relevant."
"I appreciated the accessibility and plain English - albeit thorough - writing (from the perspective of a person who is self-taught in data science and sometimes less acquainted with the terminology)."
"Strengths – Organization, having technical details in a side by side section for those who want it, covering details from definition, through use and application, as well as doing a good job explaining similarities and differences on key topics."
Best Machine Theory
In CODE, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. Charles Petzold's latest book, Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software , crosses over into general-interest nonfiction from his usual programming genre. From Louis Braille's development of his eponymous raised-dot code to Intel Corporation's release of its early microprocessors, Petzold presents stories of people trying to communicate with (and by means of) mechanical and electrical devices. The real value of Code is in its explanation of technologies that have been obscured for years behind fancy user interfaces and programming environments, which, in the name of rapid application development, insulate the programmer from the machine.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"For a reader like me, who asked every teacher from elementary school through college "why do we count to 10" and clung to the best answer of "it's arbitrary - it's just how it's always been done" until reading this book (and who struggled to convert binary to base ten), this book was gold."
"Added as an addition to my computer library."
"I just finished this book and got way more out of it than I expected."
"It is not meant to be intensive and, for that reason, I would not recommend this to anyone as a "supplementary book" for a digital design class but rather a concise introduction for a young, curious mind."
"Before I read this book, I already knew about logic gates, but I did not know (1) how electric and electonic devices can in the real world perform the function of logic gates and (2) how by arranging logic gates wisely one can perform addition and subtraction and (3) more complicated mathematical operations can be performed by doing "a lot of" additions and subtractions. But overall I think I have learned a lot from this book."
"This book takes a look at the most basic building blocks of modern technology."
"This book is a really great book."
"However, lately, there are still several books that do better job if you really want to learn more about machines."