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Bill Thompson on The Geek Atlas

The following article by Bill Thompson about the Geek Atlas appeared on the BBC Technology site and Bill's own blog, the BillBlog. Reproduced with permission. Thanks, Bill:

About ten years ago I went on a family holiday to Cornwall, and one day I dragged my unwilling kids to a delightful but otherwise undistinguished beach so I could point out to them the spot where the world’s first undersea telegraph cable came ashore in 1870.

They were about as impressed by Porthcurno beach as they had been on our trip to the fabled Saxon burial site of Sutton Hoo, which my son memorably recalls as ‘mounds in a field’, but I felt a moment of geek joy that has stayed with me since.

That first cable linked Britain to India, and helped create a communications revolution that transformed the world. The telegraph, as Tom Standage makes clear in his excellent book, was ‘The Victorian Internet’, and undersea cables were vital to its development. The cable at Porthcurno was the precursor of the Seacom cable that has just gone live in Kenya, and is a direct antecedent of the complex web of fibre-optic cables that make today’s Internet possible.

The museum was closed on the day I made it to the beach, and no amount of persuasion would persuade my kids that the drive was worth making a second time.  But if I’d had The Geek Atlas with me I would have been able to plan my trip properly and managed to make it into tunnels, dug during the Second World War, and explored the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

John Graham-Cumming’s book The Geek Atlas is a travel guide for those interested in the history of science, mathematics and technology, and lists 128 sites around the world, including Porthcuno and nearby Polhdu from which Marconi made the first transatlantic radio transmission. And if I have to explain why there are 128 entries you shouldn’t be reading the book.

Steve Bowbrick Reviews Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

I always enjoy Steve Bowbrick's blog, and it was a particular pleasure to see his review of John Broughton's Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. Steve, who you might remember as a featured profile on Scenius, has been in the web business longer than practically anyone, and from the earliest days, has been longing for the web to catch up with its own potential for the sort of collaboration of which Wikipedia is only the most prominent example. He marks the day Marc Andressen removed the editor from the Mosaic browser as one of the web's most defining moments, so it's no surprise he's a champion of such a from-the-ground-up project. He sees the Missing Manual as a benchmark of how far the web has come, and how quickly we've got used to it:

Broughton's not interested in defending or explaining Wikipedia (it just doesn't come up). His book is a how-to (a 'Missing Manual'). This is as it should be: Wikipedia's part of the landscape now, not a libertarian fantasy or a half-baked geek experiment. Practical books like this always arrive after the first, experimental, phase and before the later, ubiquitous phase. They're an important sign. They say: "this phenomenon is real and durable."

Now it's got this far, it would be easy to surmise that should Wikipedia go away, a tremendous weight of knowledge would be lost. And of course, it would. But Steve's point is that now we've done one of these, there's nothing to stop us building more, and better:

Of course, Wikipedia's not the answer. It's not our era's final position on planetary-scale knowledge sharing. In fact it's a bit of a mess at the moment and seems to be showing signs of early-onset decadence. But I think this is probably a good thing. The idea that the first large-scale collaborative effort to organise knowledge should be the only one or in some way definitive doesn't seem right: we should probably have a few goes at this at least.

Personally, I'd love Wikipedia to evolve a sustainable future from the wildness of the current collaborative system, and I'm sure Steve would, too, but whatever, the time has passed when someone can wield the sort of power Andressen affected with regard the future of the web. People will work together to make new things, pooling their resources for the thrill, the fun, the satisfaction of building something a-fresh. And one of Wikipedia's stoutest contributions to these future projects is showing the doubters that it can be done.

Steve's article about Wikipedia will appear in The Word magazine, published April 8th 2008.

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual can be bought with a 40% discount when you use the code OR145 on the UK Shopping Cart.

 

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

Gerard Meijssen writes:

When you are interested in a good review on Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, I recommend reading Brianna's review. As this covers most of what I had to say, I will only comment on what I have in addition to this.

When you read a book like this and when you are involved in Wikis, you first look for the issues that are important to you. As I am particularly involved in localisation, the explicit statement that this book is about the English language Wikipedia makes this irrelevant. As I am mostly a reader in this project, the policies and vagaries of this Wikipedia are not familiar to me. I read the book with a great deal of interest because it is often said that many of the policies described show the maturity of the project. I found that the book explained the policies clearly.

Given that this is a "missing manual", I would like another book about the MediaWiki software. One of the more relevant criticisms of the software is that more and better documentation is not only welcome but needed. A missing manual for MediaWiki would be about installing and setting up a MediaWiki installation, it would discuss many of the extensions available to improve on the basic functionality and it should even explain about some of the basic issues that need to be considered for what is to become the community for a MediaWiki project.

It is interesting to compare "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" with Wikipedia, Das Buch, Both are about one particular Wikipedia, the biggest difference is in the outlook of the book. The English book has been written in a way that ensures that the copyright of the book is with the publisher. The German book includes much material from the German Wikipedia and is consequently freely licensed. Both approaches have their merit. As my German is not as good as my English, I cannot make more of a comparison.
Thanks,
     Gerard

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual can be bought with a 40% discount when you use the code OR145 on the UK Shopping Cart.

Book Review: Programming SQL Server 2005

Uma Kanagaratnam MBCS reviewed Programming SQL Server 2005 by Bill Hamilton for the BCS.

The chapters are well organised and kick starts with an overview of the new and enhanced tools and command line utilities. The mid-section looks at SQL server management objects in great detail. SQL Server Management Objects (SMO) is a collection of objects that are designed for programming all aspects of managing Microsoft SQL Server it surpasses the database management functionality of SQL DMO used to manage SQL server 2000.

The book is easy to read and I would recommend it as a useful resource. The author has highlighted sections where he has made a suggestion or provided a general comment which is valuable.

Score: 9 out of 10          Read on

Book Review: Windows Vista in a Nutshell

Len Keighley FBCS reviewed Windows Vista in a Nutshell by Preston Gralla for the BCS.  Don't be put off by yet another book on Windows Vista. This book could be the one.

At first this would just appear to be another, in a long line of 'In A Nutshell' books and one of a large number of 'How to' books for Windows latest release, Vista. However, when the book is opened even for a short glance it is quickly obvious that this is definitely not the case.

Score: 10 out of 10          Read on

Book review: Perl Hacks

Rory MacDonald reviewed Perl Hacks for the Edinburgh Perlmongers -

I glanced at this text last year, but allowed the title and a very brief squint at the publisher's blurb to put me off digging any further.

My loss

Moral: don't believe publishers' blurbs or title. Check the content of the book as Rory concludes -

Due to the hard-earned nature of many of the lessons presented, I would consider it likely that most Perl coders would find something here to inspire, motivate and assist in their Perl development.

If you're looking for education and inspiration, then you should read this book.

PDF Review: Web Services on Rails

Francesca Beatrice Cice reviewed Web Services on Rails in Programmazione.it.

Any translators around?

Book Review: Ambient Findability

Michael Upshall reviewed Ambient Findability for UK eInformation Group. He starts the review with -

Peter Morville is a librarian, and follows the usual librarians’ line that there is Google and that there are librarians, and people use the former when they should be using the latter. If only people asked the specialists, they would be better informed, etc. etc. ...

Interested! please continue reading.

Book Review: Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, 5th edition

Paris Apostolopoulos from the Java Hellenic User Group reviewed Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, 5th Edition.

So, if you want a real reference book that will provide all the basic knowledge of the new spec, this book is really for you. I managed to get my initial work done , reading through the material. The book is not targeted in Jboss only, all the concepts and chapters cover EJB spec details that can be applied to any j2ee application server. If you are a Jboss user as well then the attached – Jboss Workbook – book will be even more helpful since it is targeting all the Jboss users. If you are now starting with EJB 3.0 this book is the way to go, if you are also a Jboss user then is a must have. Great book, I really enjoyed it reading. Congrats to the authors!

Do read the complete review and let us know what you think of the book.

Book Review: Digital Photography Expert Techniques, 2nd Edition

A great review of Digital Photography Expert Techniques by PC Book Review " Overall this is a fine book. Commendably restrained in terms of content - it sticks to what really matters - yet is liberally filled with good solid tips and guidance. The author's experience shines through and whilst someone looking for a guide to Photoshop may be dissapointed, anyone looking to extend their expertise across the whole range of the digital photographic process will find much here of use. The book also introduces various other software tools that may be used so have your credit card handy as you read through. Best of all, in most cases the book tells you why you are doing things a certain way, not just that you should. Recomended." For further info. please read on.