Michael J. Ross writes "With the growing interest in Drupal as a platform for developing websites, the number of books devoted to this CMS has increased from a handful to now several dozen. Consequently, intermediate and advanced Drupal programmers may wonder which one of those books would be their best choice as a single resource for learning how to create custom Drupal modules and themes. Ever since its first edition in April 2007, the Pro Drupal Development series from Apress is more frequently cited as the best candidate than any other." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.

theodp writes "At the risk of pulling-a-Groupon, I have a dream that one day my children will not be judged by their e-readers, but by the content of their character. The NY Times' Virginia Heffernan complains that many indie New York City cafes now heavily restrict, or ban outright, the use of Kindles, Nooks and iPads. Evidently, she says, too many coffee shops have had their ambience wrecked when itinerant word processors with laptops turn the tables into office space. Full-dress computers are one thing, says Heffernan, but banning devices the size of books is going too far, and it's anathema to the character and history of cafes. By contrast, Starbucks offers free, one-click, unlimited wireless service to their patrons, making it in Heffernan's eyes 'a flawed franchise that is squarely in the public good.'"

destinyland writes "The New York Times' site just published their first best-seller list which includes ebooks. 'To give the fullest and most accurate possible snapshot of what books are being read at a given moment you have to include as many different formats as possible,' a book editor explained in November, 'and e-books have really grown, there's no question about it.' Interestingly, the rankings of the top 7 best-selling ebooks are unchanged if you also include their print sales."

An anonymous reader writes "In a 'pray I don't alter it again' moment for eBook sellers on apple iPad and iPhone devices, Apple is now requiring third-party eBook sellers like Amazon to also make their titles available through the Apple store, wherein the empire will take an additional 30% cut. 'Apple confirmed Tuesday that it would require app developers that sell e-books outside of their iPad and iPhone apps — through a Web site, for example — to also sell the books inside those apps. And purchases that originate in the app must be made through Apple, which keeps a 30 percent cut.'"

eldavojohn writes "Scientific American is running a piece by science journalist John Horgan attacking pop physicist Brian Greene's latest offering, titled The Hidden Reality. He's not entirely alone; Not Even Wrong backs him up and reminds us of a growing list of multiverse propaganda. The journal Nature ran a short piece (subscription required) trying to remind everyone that Greene's book is more theory than fact, but apart from those three responses, the popular press seems to be gobbling up this tantalizing concept of a multiverse. NPR offers an excerpt while SFGate and The Wall Street Journal entertain us with interviews of the controversial Greene. The New York Times and Salon seem to think it's worthwhile, with Salon even calling it 'the science behind' the multiverse theory. The New York Times thought it worthwhile to give Greene an op-ed column. For better or for worse, Greene has certainly brought this great debate to the public's attention — similar to his exhibition of String Theory."

destinyland writes "Thursday Amazon.com announced that they're selling more ebooks than paperback books — and three times as many ebooks as hardcovers. If you combine their statistics into a pie chart, it shows that 45% of all the books Amazon sells are now ebooks. And Amazon's statistic doesn't include all the free ebooks people are downloading to their Kindles, so if just one user downloads a free ebook for every nine paid ebook purchases — then Amazon is already delivering more digital ebooks than they are print editions." Another reader tips an interview with Brian Altounian, CEO of ebook marketplace WOWIO, in which he discusses an encroaching feature that ebook aficionados love to hate: ads.

brothke writes "When someone calls 911 in a panic to report an emergency, within seconds the dispatcher knows where the call is coming from, and help is often only moments away. When it comes to computer security incidents, often companies are not as resilient in their ability to quickly respond. Take for instance the TJX Cos. data breach, where insecure wireless networks were compromised for months, revealing millions of personal records, before they were pinpointed and finally secured. Once made aware of the issue, it took TJX an additional few months until the situation was completely in control and secured. In Computer Incident Response and Product Security, author Damir Rajnovic provides the reader with an excellent and practical guide to the fundamentals of building and running a security incident response team. The book is focused on getting the reader up to speed as quick as possible and is packed with valuable real-world and firsthand guidance." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.

jantangring writes "It's been 28 years since Volume 3 of Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming was published. The book series is a classic work of computer science in spite of the fact that still more than half of the seven volume series is still to be finalized. In 1992 Donald Knuth retired to medieval monkness in order to finish his work. After many long years in draft, volume 4A now in print and you can get it in a boxed set if you don't mind admitting that you don't already own the first three volumes. They won't be checking if you read it."

tverbeek writes "After more than half a century of stifling the comic book industry, the Comics Code Authority is effectively dead. Created in response to Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, one of the early think-of-the-children censorship campaigns, and Congressional hearings, the Code laid out a checklist of requirements and restrictions for comics to be distributed to newsstand vendors, effectively ensuring that in North America, only simplistic stories for children would be told using the medium of sequential art. It gradually lost many of its teeth, and an increasing number of publishers gave up on newsstand distribution and ignored the Code, but at the turn of the century the US's largest comics publishers still participated. Marvel quit it in 2001, in favor of self-applied ratings styled after the MPAA's and ESRB's. Last year Bongo (publishers of the Simpsons comics) quietly dropped out. Now DC and Archie, the last publishers willingly subjecting their books to approval, have announced that they're discontinuing their use of the CCA, with DC following Marvel's example, and Archie (which recently introduced an openly gay supporting character, something flatly forbidden by the original Code) carrying on under their own standards. The Code's cousins — the MPAA and ESRB ratings, the RIAA parental advisory, and the mishmash of warnings on TV shows — still live on, but at least North American comic publishers are no longer subject to external censorship."

Michael J. Ross writes "Of all the better-known content management systems, Drupal is oftentimes criticized for having the steepest learning curve. Yet that would only be a valid charge as a result of Drupal's great power and flexibility — particularly in the hands of a knowledgeable Drupal developer. But how can the interested programmer begin gaining those skills, as quickly as possible? One approach is to read and work through the examples of an introductory book, such as Foundation Drupal 7, written by Robert J. Townsend (except for a chapter contributed by Stephanie Pakrul)." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.

New research suggests that the clear screens and easily read fonts of e-readers makes your brain "lazy." According to Neuroscience blogger Jonah Lehrer, using electronic books like the Kindle and Sony Reader makes you less likely to remember what you have read because the devices are so easy on the eyes. From the article: "Rather than making things clearer, e-readers and computers prevent us from absorbing information because their crisp screens and fonts tell our subconscious that the words they convey are not important, it is claimed. In contrast, handwriting and fonts that are more challenging to read signal to the brain that the content of the message is important and worth remembering, experts say."

J. Ayen Green writes "When the request came for me to review Drupal 6: Panels Cookbook by Bhavin (Vin) Patel, I was excited. I've been a software developer forever, a Web developer for as long as there's been a Web, and a Drupal developer since D6 was imminent. I have two Drupal books myself, and am working on one about D7 Views, but with all that, one glaring hole in my self-education has been Panels; it would be my first chance to use it." Keep reading for the rest of J. Ayen Green's review.

macslocum writes "Ambiguity surrounds the real impact of digital book piracy, notes Brian O'Leary in an interview with O'Reilly Radar, but all would be better served if more data was shared and less effort was exerted on futile DRM. 'The publishing industry should be working as hard as we can to develop new and innovative business models that meet the needs of readers. And what those look like could be community-driven. I think of Baen Books, for example, which doesn't put any DRM restrictions on its content but is one of the least pirated book publishers. As to sales, Paulo Coelho is a good example. He mines the piracy data to see if there's a burgeoning interest for his books in a particular country or market. If so, he either works to get his book out in print or translate it in that market.'"

FrederickSeiler writes "When David Harriman, this book's author, was studying physics at Berkeley, he noticed an interesting contrast: 'In my physics lab course, I learned how to determine the atomic structure of crystals by means of x-ray diffraction and how to identify subatomic particles by analyzing bubble-chamber photographs. In my philosophy of science course, on the other hand, I was taught by a world-renowned professor (Paul Feyerabend) that there is no such thing as scientific method and that physicists have no better claim to knowledge than voodoo priests. I knew little about epistemology [the philosophy of knowledge] at the time, but I could not help noticing that it was the physicists, not the voodoo priests, who had made possible the life-promoting technology we enjoy today.' Harriman noticed the enormous gulf between science as it is successfully practiced and science as is it described by post-Kantian philosophers such as Feyerabend, who are totally unable to explain the spectacular achievements of modern science." Read on for the rest of Frederick's review.

eldavojohn writes "Over a hundred years after the death of its author, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will be released in a censored format, removing two derogatory racial slurs: 'injun' and 'nigger.' The latter appears some 219 times in the original novel but both will be replaced by the word 'slave.' An Alabama publisher named NewSouth Books will be editing and censoring the book so that schools and parents might provide their children the ability to study the classic without fear of properly addressing the torturous history of racism and slavery in The United States of America. The Forbes Blog speculates that e-readers could provide us this service automatically. Salon admirably provides point versus counterpoint while the internet at large is in an uproar over this seemingly large acceptance of censorship as necessary even on books a hundred years old. The legendary Samuel Langhorne Clemens himself once wrote, 'the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter,' and now his own writing shall test the truth in that today."

brothke writes "Securing the Smart Grid: Next Generation Power Grid Security, authors Tony Flick and Justin Morehouse provide a comprehensive and first-rate overview of smart grid technology and what is needed to ensure that it is developed and deployed in a secure and safe manner. An issue is that smart grid has significant amount of hype around it, including the promise that it will make energy more affordable, effective and green. With that, promises around security and privacy are often hard to obtain." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.

Nom du Keyboard writes "Recently word leaked out about Amazon removing titles containing fictional incest. Surprisingly that ban didn't extend to the 10 titles of Science Fiction Grand Master Robert A. Heinlein that incorporate various themes of incest and pedophilia. Now, it seems that the censorship is expanding to m/m gay fiction if it contains the magic word 'rape' in the title. Just how far is this going to be allowed to proceed in relative silence, and who is pushing these sudden decisions on Amazon's part?"

Michael J. Ross writes "While it is possible to create a simple website using a base installation of Drupal, the real power of this content management system is achieved through the use of modules, which can be thought of as add-ons that extend the capabilities of Drupal in specific ways — oftentimes in conjunction with other modules. These modules are developed and contributed by PHP programmers who understand how to use one or more of the Drupal application programming interfaces (APIs) to access information stored in a Drupal database, such as content, user profiles, and theme settings. These APIs have changed with Drupal version 7, and thus Drupal coders could benefit from a book that explains how to create Drupal 7 contrib modules." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.

Modern Perl writes "Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, reflects on Perl's history of hacking its culture, from subverting the reductionist culture of Unix to reinventing the ideas of programming language and culture in Perl 6 and the verbal aikido used to encourage honest detractors to become valuable contributors. Perl turned 23 years old last week, and Perl 6 is available."

RickJWagner writes "20 percent inert ingredients, 80 percent nitro glycerin. That's how I'd describe JBoss AS 5 Performance Tuning from Packt. The first 50 pages are nothing to get excited about. This first chapter and a half describes the author's performance tuning life cycle methodology and introduces us to a handful of open source tools that can assist us in our tuning efforts. The tools section seems especially weak-- there are plenty of screenshots showing the tool's menu screens, something you'd normally pick up in about a minute from the tool's distribution website. Honestly, at this point I was beginning to wonder if this book was going to live up to my expectations. Luckily I pressed on for a few more pages, and hit the rich paydirt that makes up the rest of the book. From that point on, every section yielded valuable tuning advice." Keep reading for the rest of Rick's review.