If you use the web to reach out beyond the confines of your office,
cubicle, or home to connect and collaborate with others doing the
same thing, you’re a web worker. In this book you’ll learn how to
use new web tools, discover sites and services you might want to
try, and meet the social web where people are as important as
corporations. You’ll learn how people are working in new ways
because of the web, and how you can too. Read the rest of this entry »

Ruby on Rails has shaken up the web development industry in a huge way—especially
when you consider that version 1.0 of Rails was only released in December 2005. The huge waves of enthusiasm for the new framework, originally in weblogs and later in the more traditional media, are probably the reason why this book is in your hands.
This book will lead you through the components that make up the Rails framework by building a clone of the popular story-sharing web site digg.com. This will give you a chance to get your feet wet building a simple, yet comprehensive web application
using Ruby on Rails.
While the first edition of this book hit the shelves shortly after Rails 1.2 was released, the Rails Core Team quickly hurried off to work on an even better and even more polished version of the framework—a version that was released in December of 2007 as Rails 2.0. Although seen as an evolutionary (rather than a revolutionary) update, Rails 2 features improvements in almost every corner of its comprehensive code base, hence the requirement to update this book. And the improvements continue:
as we go to press, the 2.1 release of Rails is imminent.
Without going into too many boring details, rest assured that with Rails 2 you have the fastest and most secure, concise, fun and rewarding version of Rails in existence. You get a secure web application almost out of the box; using the latest web technologies
such as Ajax has never been more accessible; and it’s just as easy to produce a well-tested application as it is not to do any automated testing.
If that’s all Klingon to you, don’t worry. I’ll get you started, and by the time you finish this book, you’ll be able to discuss all things Web 2.0 with your friends and coworkers, and impress your dentist with geeky vocabulary.

About the Author
Patrick Lenz has been developing web applications for more than ten years. Founder and lead developer of the freshmeat.net software portal, he and his Rails consultancy and web application development company, limited overload, are responsible for several community-driven web applications developed using Ruby on Rails. Patrick also authored some of the first articles to appear on the web about architecting and scaling larger Rails applications.
Patrick lives in Wiesbaden, Germany, with his wife Alice and his daughter Gwendolyn.
When not working in front of a computer, he can often be seen with a camera in his hand, either taking artsy pictures or documenting the progress of his baby girl conquering the world.1 He also enjoys cars, music, and extended weekend brunches with friends.
His weblog can be found at http://poocs.net/. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the second volume in a projected five-volume survey of numerical linear
algebra and matrix algorithms. It treats the numerical solution of dense and
large-scale eigenvalue problems with an emphasis on algorithms and the
theoretical background required to understand them. The notes and reference
sections contain pointers to other methods along with historical comments. The
book is divided into two parts: dense eigenproblems and large eigenproblems. The
first part gives a full treatment of the widely used QR algorithm, which is then
applied to the solution of generalized eigenproblems and the computation of the
singular value decomposition. The second part treats Krylov sequence methods
such as the Lanczos and Arnoldi algorithms and presents a new treatment of the
Jacobi-Davidson method. These volumes are not intended to be encyclopedic, but
provide the reader with the theoretical and practical background to read the
research literature and implement or modify new algorithms.

Read the rest of this entry »

This thorough, concise, and superbly written volume is the first in a self-
contained five-volume series devoted to matrix algorithms. It focuses on the
computation of matrix decompositions-that is, the factorization of matrices into
products of similar ones.

The first two chapters provide the required background from mathematics and
computer science needed to work effectively in matrix computations. The
remaining chapters are devoted to the LU and QR decompositions-their computation
and applications. The singular value decomposition is also treated, although
algorithms for its computation will appear in the second volume of the series.
The present volume contains 65 algorithms formally presented in pseudocode.

Other volumes in the series will treat eigensystems, iterative methods, sparse
matrices, and structured problems. The series is aimed at the nonspecialist who
needs more than black-box proficiency with matrix computations. To give the
series focus, the emphasis is on algorithms, their derivation, and their
analysis.

The reader is assumed to have a knowledge of elementary analysis and linear
algebra and a reasonable amount of programming experience, typically that of the
beginning graduate engineer or the undergraduate in an honors program. Strictly
speaking, the individual volumes are not textbooks, although they are intended
to teach, the guiding principle being that if something is worth explaining, it
is worth explaining fully. This has necessarily restricted the scope of the
series, but the selection of topics should give the reader a sound basis for
further study.

Read the rest of this entry »

- Builds on the huge success of Laptops For Dummies, now in its second
edition
- Eight minibooks comprising nearly 850 pages give laptop owners the
detailed information and advice they need to make the most of their
computers
- Offers focused content for new and intermediate laptop users,
covering laptop basics and beyond, from synchronizing information with a
desktop PC and coordinating e-mail between two computers to accessing
the Internet or a desktop computer remotely
- Minibooks include laptop basics, software for laptops, accessories
to go, traveling with a laptop, security, networking a laptop, sources
of power, and upgrading a laptop
- Sales of laptops continue to outpace sales of desktop PCs, with
retail laptop sales up 24 percent in the 2006 holiday season

Read the rest of this entry »