Violent Python by TJ O'Connor

This book is an interesting exercise in penetration and security testing for those using Python. In the beginning, it talks about how this book can be used for all sorts of people, from the beginner in Python to more expert Python users. I would have to say that if you're just now learning Python, you should start with a different book and once you have the basics down, then come back to this book. It goes over the basics but doesn't mention anything about syntax so if you don't already know the real basics, you're not getting it here.
Overall, this book is quite useful for learning how to do penetration testing and in some ways, I question if we want to teach people how to write worms and how that type of thing works but honestly, you can find all that information online for free. It's not really the intent of this book either but could be a negative byproduct.
What I wasn't a fan of was the fact that the code steers readers to use an outdate version of Python (2.6) when some of the code and libraries used in the book are actually from a newer, stable version (2.7.1). Being such a new book, it's a bit of a surprise that an outdated code base is used.
I also found the book assumed a little too much of the reader/user. The first chapter goes over the basics and also some basic testing of servers but doesn't explain you have to have one set up that you can test against and if you don't have one to test against, it's hard to test out the code that's given.
Overall, it's pretty good but you really need to know your stuff fairly well for it to really be worthwhile.

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All comments represent my thoughts and opinions.

My Review of Arduino Workshop by John Boxall

Okay, as soon as I saw this book available for review, I had to pick up the book. I actually had a chance to go through it before and was pleased to be able to get a copy of my own.
I have long been a fan of John Boxall and his Arduino tutorials on Tronixstuff and learned a lot from his tutorials. They were always very well written and had great pictures to show how things worked. This book is no different and basically is a print version of what he has online in a more formal setting. This is a must own book for anyone that wants to learn Arduino.
Each chapter in this book touches on the basics to begin with and then progresses through more difficult and complex projects using various sets of hardware. If you really want to be able to go through the entire book, you're going to have to pony up some good money to purchase the hardware. It won't be cheap but it's worth having all those tools at your fingertips for rapid prototyping purposes.
In addition to Arduino information, it also give a very brief overview of basic electronics, which I already know, but would be helpful for anyone that is learning.
Once again, this is a highly recommended book and something I would definitely suggest to anyone that wants to learn Arduino.

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All comments represent my thoughts and opinions.

My Review of Understanding and Using C Pointers

I've read a few online manuals on pointers and even took a beginner C class that touched on pointers. They were all pretty good in getting the basics across but none of those did a great job of explaining pointers like this book did. I have to say it's a wonderful book that goes through every aspect of pointers and really helps you understand all you need to know.
I learn by watching and doing, basically, monkey see, monkey do. Reading about pointers is nice and all but seeing how it works and then being able to put in even a little code really helps solidify concepts for me. The code snippets were nice as they were things I'm accustomed to seeing in the systems I work on some and the diagrams explaining how memory addresses are referenced and change with specific commands really helped out a lot.
I would highly recommend this to anyone learning C and needs more information on pointers or a more seasoned individual that would like to expand their knowledge about pointers.

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All comments represent my thoughts and opinions.

My Review of Blender Master Class

I picked up this book because I still need to learn some CAD modeling for the 3D printer I just purchased. My free options were OpenSCAD, Blender, or Google/Trimble SketchUp. I know Blender is the most powerful of the bunch so I decided on giving it a try.
The book does a really good job in explaining some basics of how everything is set up on the GUI. It's similar to Photoshop in some ways, which can be useful if you use Photoshop. I haven't so it was nice to have all the explanations in the book.
It also goes through a quick run through of GIMP as that will be useful for fully utilizing Blender.
The rest of the book was pretty good but I ended up quitting half way through as it's better suited for modeling life like models instead of doing models you would normally 3D print. You can definitely print things you come up with in Blender but for my purposes 99% of the time, I wouldn't need something as powerful as Blender. If you want to do animation or life like modeling, Blender is perfect. If you want to do architecture, SketchUp is great. If you want to do basic parametric modeling, OpenSCAD works well.
This book, as far as I made it, did a great job taking you step-by-step through how to make a few different models. The images used were very helpful to know how the modeling works.
Overall, I would recommend this book for those doing life like models or animation. If you're looking for something more like engineering models, you'll be better served using something else.

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All comments represent my thoughts and opinions.

My Review of Programming PHP

I picked this book up because I thought I would try to get into making my own website to be able to post some information. I didn't realize I needed HTML knowledge to get going with PHP but I guess after thinking about it, it makes perfect sense.
Anyway, the book is just like many of the other programming books in that it covers a wide variety of topics and is well organized. I always find it interesting to see the history of how these languages began and this too has a good history.
The content of the book is nice and good enough to get around and know what you are trying to do.
Overall, I would say this is a nice reference to have around.

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All comments represent my thoughts and opinions.

My Review of The Book of GIMP

I had used GIMP a few times at work since I use Linux there and I basically used it to resize a few images but never really understood the capabilities of the program. I had heard that it was a very powerful editor, somewhat like Photoshop, but didn't really care much to look into it at the time.

Then I needed to do some more advanced things that I wasn't sure I could do with Paint in Windows that I ran in a VM on my machine. I looked online for some information about how to do things and found I could do a whole lot with it.
Well, then I saw this book come up as a reviewable book and I decided I should get it to see what I could get out of the program.
I have yet to go through the entire book as it's pretty hefty but it's an excellent reference. Actually, it's more like a textbook with each chapter having exercises at the end to do. There are plenty of images to go along with each section to show how the image changes when a specific edit is made. It's very useful. The index is also great for finding things you need to do.
All in all, it's a great reference to have to be able to use a free photo editor that has a lot of the capabilities of Photoshop.

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All comments represent my thoughts and opinions.

My Review of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi

I have been interested in playing with a Raspberry Pi for quite some time and it'll be a while before I do as I have too many other projects to work on right now, but I decided to go through this book to see how useful it would be. I have to say it's definitely a recommended reading for anyone getting into this great, inexpensive computer!

It is quite detailed on how to go through everything from setup to advanced topics like using GPIO to control things and read sensor information. I also think the primer on Python is a great way to get people thinking more about using Python for things. I have been trying to get going in Linux for a bit now and found these instructions, even though it's for the RPi, to be quite useful. There's even a section on how to connect and use an Arduino with the RPi. I appreciate that section!
My only complaint and the reason I gave it 4 stars is the lack of thorough editing before releasing this book. There were multiple grammatical errors in the book that I found to be a bit annoying for a published book, although I know they can be hard to find. I also found a mistake in the code in one of the loops that would make it go forever as one of the variables is never incremented. You need to know a little programming to use what's in this book so most people reading this with some sort of understanding would likely catch the error but for those that are new to it may not.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and found it very useful. Now I need a little more time and my own board to play around with!

Disclaimer: This book was received as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program. All comments represent my thoughts and opinions.