Managing Humans is a selection of the best essays from Michael Lopps web site, Rands In Repose. Drawing on Lopp's management experiences at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland, this book is full of stories based on companies in the Silicon Valley where people have been known to yell at each other. It is a place full of dysfunctional bright people who are in an incredible hurry to find the next big thing so they can strike it rich and then do it all over again. Among these people are managers, a strange breed of people who through a mystical organizational ritual have been given power over your future and your bank account. Whether you're an aspiring manager, a current manager, or just wondering what the heck a manager does all day, there is a story in this book that will speak to you. You will learn: What to do when people start yelling at each otherHow to perform a diving save when the best engineer insists on resigningHow to say "No" to the person who signs your paycheck

Among fans of Michael Lopp is the incomparable Joel Spolsky, cofounder and CEO of Fog Creek Software:

"What you're holding in your hands in by far the most brilliant book about managing software teams you're ever going to find".

This book is designed for managers and would-be managers staring at the role of a manager wondering why they would ever leave the safe world of bits and bites for the messy world of managing humans. The book covers handling conflict, managing wildly differing personality types, infusing innovation into insane product schedules, and figuring out how to build a lasting and useful engineering culture.

"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day—think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows—or at least knows by name. —Ron Hogan

The M.I.L.K. collection of photographs aims to depict the joy, heartbreak and love that shape and make up our lives. Introduced by Maeve Binchy, this second volume expresses the sweetness of true friendship - the laughter and happiness in sharing life's pleasures with another.The photos were selected by Elliot Erwitt from 1000s entered by professional and amateur photographers to explore the idea of friendship.

Theclassic book on the human elements of software engineering. Software tools and development environments may have changed in the 21 years since the first edition of this book, but the peculiarly nonlinear economies of scale in collaborative work and the nature of individuals and groups has not changed an epsilon. If you write code or depend upon those who do, get this book as soon as possible — from Amazon.com Books, your library, or anyone else. You (and/or your colleagues) will be forever grateful. Very Highest Recommendation.

Rather than a simple update of the existing Professional Java Server Programming book, the J2EE edition represents an evolution of the content to reflect the changing state of server-side Java development. Whereas the first edition can be seen as an introduction to Java on the server, the new edition is a more tightly integrated vision of how to combine the Java technologies to develop n-tier applications in Java based primarily around J2EE. Since the release of the first edition in the fall of '99, probably the single most significant change in the Java server-side landscape has been the release of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Although we covered many of the elements of J2EE in the first edition of the book, many things have changed.

J2EE represents a serious attempt by Sun to make Java not just a viable language, but more importantly a viable platform for enterprise development. This book is about how to use Java for enterprise development, using the J2EE runtime architecture.

Wide range of technologies including: J2EE, RMI, JDBC, JNDI, LDAP, XML, XSLT, Servlets, JSP, EJB, JMS, JavaMail, CORBA, Performance, Scalability, Unit Testing, and Debugging

Benefits and limits of the typical real-world vendor implementations of the J2EE specification

The resulting practical aspects of real-word design using the J2EE technologies

As a Java developer, you're always looking for tools to help in your web and application development. Maybe you've heard of the Jakarta Commons open source Java tools. The Jakarta Commons is an open source Jakarta subproject where developers create and maintain a collection of twenty-plus independent Java components and utilities that serve useful purposes. Jakarta Commons packages include utilities for web, XML, networking, building and testing applications, and some that help other packages work better together. Jakarta Commons packages are designed to be reusable. Each one is a time saver by itself, and when used in combination the results can be very powerful. But in searching for information on the Jakarta Commons tools, you find it hard to locate documentation relevant to your needs. You don't have lots of time to spend searching for information on a specific Jakarta Commons tool to determine what it does and how to incorporate it in your code. If you are looking for a single source for clear information and samples on how to use the Jakarta Commons tools, then the Jakarta Commons Cookbookis for you. The Jakarta Commons Cookbooksummarizes each of the available Jakarta Commons packages and contains practical and efficient recipes for making the most out of the Jakarta Commons open source Java tools. You don't have to be an expert, since the book explains how and why to use a utility, pitfalls to avoid, and where to look for additional information on Jakarta Commons utilities. It introduces design possibilities and explores combining Jakarta Commons utilities in novel assemblies to create complex applications. The book offers detailed code samples and insider tips—making it a valuable resource whether you are an expert Java developer or a novice. If you want to quickly learn how to use Jakarta Commons timing-saving utilities or have an invaluable resource for Jakarta Commons questions and techniques, then the Jakarta Commons Cookbookis for you.

"Java and SOAP" provides Java developers with an in-depth look at SOAP (the Simple Object Access Protocol). Of course, it covers the basics: what SOAP is, why it's soared to a spot on the Buzzwords' Top Ten list, and what its features and capabilities are. And it shows you how to work with some of the more common Java APIs in the SOAP world: Apache SOAP and GLUE.

In addition to covering the basics such as the structure of a SOAP message, SOAP encoding, and building simple services using RPC and messaging, Java and SOAP covers many topics that are essential to real-world development. Although SOAP has native support for an impressive number of object types, the nature of modern programming means that whatever SOAP gives you is not enough. When do you need to add support for your own object types, and how do you do it? How do you handle errors, and how do you add your own information to Fault messages? How do you handle attachments?

In an ideal world, you could live entirely within Java, and ignore the SOAP messages being send back and forth: you'd be able to write Java code and let the SOAP APIs work behind the scenes. However, we're not yet in that ideal world, and won't be for some time. Therefore, Java and SOAP pays particular attention to how SOAP messages are encoded. It doesn't just explain the document types, but shows how the documents are used in practice as they are generated by the different APIs. If you ever have to debug interoperability problems, you'll find that this information is indispensable.

We've always found that the best software is written by people who understand what's happening under the hood. SOAP is no different. Let's say you need to write acustom serializer to create a SOAP representation of a structure. How do you know that your encoding is efficient? There's one definitive answer: look at the SOAP documents it produces!

"Java and SOAP" also discusses interoperability between the major SOAP platforms, including Microsoft's .NET, SOAP messaging, SOAP attachments, message routing, and a preview of the forthcoming AXIS APIs and server. If you're a Java developer who would like to start working with SOAP, this is the book you need to get going.

On Writing Well has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity and the warmth of its style. It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sole, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

Here's the key to being thoroughly prepared when you face the Cisco Certified Network Associate exam, the first step on the way to the coveted Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) certification or the Cisco Certified Design Professional (CCDP) certification. The CCNA Exam Notes guide provides objective-by-objective coverage of all the material you need to know for the exam, singling out critical information, outlining necessary procedures, identifying exam essentials, and providing sample questions. —Network Press

Great management is difficult to see as it occurs. It's possible to see the results of great management, but it's not easy to see how managers achieve those results. Great management happens in one-on-one meetings and with other managers—-all in private. It's hard to learn management by example when you can't see it.

You can learn to be a better manager—-even a great manager—-with this guide. You'll follow along as Sam, a manager just brought on board, learns the ropes and deals with his new team over the course of his first eight weeks on the job. From scheduling and managing resources to helping team members grow and prosper, you'll be there as Sam makes it happen. You'll find powerful tips covering: Delegating effectivelyUsing feedback and goal-settingDeveloping influenceHandling one-on-one meetingsCoaching and mentoringDeciding what work to do—-and what not to do...and more.

Full of tips and practical advice on the most important aspects of management, this is one of those books that can make a lasting and immediate impact on your career.

Direct from the creators of the Java(tm) programming language, this Third Edition of The Java(tm) Programming Language is a valuable resource for both novice and advanced programmers. More than 100,000 developers who programmed with C, C++, Smalltalk, or other high-level languages have used this book to get a concise, intelligent, and deep understanding of the Java programming language. This book is what you need to understand the basic design goals of the language and the application of the language in real-world development. It provides unique insights into why and how the language was designed and intended to be used. The authors describe the latest version of the language, as defined in the Java(tm) Language Specification, Second Edition and implemented in version 1.3 of the Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition. This third edition has been structured to give more in-depth treatment of the newer language features, as well as informative examples on using some of the new APIs. New and/or revised in this edition: more details on language features, including an expanded section on nested classes more comprehensive treatment of garbage collection and related programming issues coverage of new APIs, such as collections and internationalization Thoroughly revised from start to finish, this edition fully covers the features of the current release of the Java programming language and class libraries. The book serves as a tutorial introduction to the language and essential libraries as well as a reference. Experienced programmers will find this new edition to be a valuable reference, and will gain new insights into the subtleties of the language. Novice and intermediate programmers will benefit from the valuable examples and clear explanations of language and library features. Make sure you understand the contents of this book before you begin any serious development for the Java platform.

Learn how to use the hottest new Java open source tools for eXtreme Programming

eXtreme Programming (XP) is a new development methodology for building software systems quickly without sacrificing quality. New Java open source tools have appeared recently that help with the most time-consuming and difficult part of the XP process-testing, integration, and deployment. Java Tools for eXtreme Programming is the first complete guide to using those tools for XP. Throughout the book, author Richard Hightower uses a sample application to demonstrate how each Java tool is used. For each tool, he provides a concise description of key concepts, plenty of code examples, and directions for setting up scripts for automating the development step in which the tool is used. The book also features a detailed reference to each of the major tools, complete with coding examples.

* XP is the most popular new development methodology

* A practical, code-intensive guide to the tools that enterprise Java developers need when using the XP methodology to build applications

Companion Web site features sample code, XP software tool updates, and links to useful XP sites.

The best-selling lighting guide—now updated with even more photos and diagrams

* 100 great photographs and the setups behind them
* Side- and plan-view diagrams for each photo
* Revised and expanded to include more pictures and the latest technology

Now available revised and updated in paperback, the best-selling Photographing Peopleis an inspiring and comprehensive showcase of exciting work from photographers around the world—and full explanations and diagrams of the lighting setups behind each picture. Portraits, fashion, and glamour photography are included here, all accompanied by detailed 3D diagrams plus expert explanations and advice on solving problems that might arise in similar situations. Helpful to beginners and professionals alike, this book is packed with inspiring photographs—and all the details needed to re-create the lighting and obtain remarkable results.

Every day, all around the world, programmers have to recycle legacy data, translate from one vendor's proprietary format into another's, check that configuration files are internally consistent, and search through web logs to see how many people have downloaded the latest release of their product. This kind of "data crunching," may not be glamorous, but knowing how to do it efficiently is essential to being a good programmer.

This book describes the most useful data crunching techniques, explains when you should use them, and shows how they will make your life easier. Along the way, it will introduce you to some handy, but under-used, features of Java, Python, and other languages. It will also show you how to test data crunching programs, and how data crunching fits into the larger software development picture.