Win a free copy of "The Developer's Guide to Social Programming"

This week, JavaRanch is delighted to have Mark Hawker helping to answer questions about their new book The Developer's Guide to Social Programming. They will hang out in the HTML and JavaScript forum. Or check it out on your mobile device.

The promotion starts Tuesday, April 13th 2010 and will end on Friday, April 16th 2010.

They'll be selecting four random posters in this forum to win a free copy of the book provided by the publisher, Addison-Wesley Professional.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is a wonderful, wise and fascinatingly creative book from a writer justly called (by the Archbishop of Canterbury) one of the most important spiritual writers of our time. Reworking the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, Philip Pullman explores, through the characters of Jesus and (Pullman's creation) his Judas-like twin Christ, the tensions between vital prophetic faith and its institutionalised embodiments, between passion and calculation, between history and `Truth'. Pullman's Jesus is a wonderfully alive figure, whose well-known parables and teachings come vividly to life in the author's limpid, spare and direct prose. And there are some wonderful twists on the parables: I loved the notion that the `kingdom of God' is found more in the solidarity between the Wise Girl and her Foolish counterpart together refusing to enter the banquet, than it is inside at the feast. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

As you might expect from Pullman, it's a beautifully-written book, full of (sometimes surprising) echoes of the biblical text. Pullman's plot devices force (but never bully) the reader to engage with `how stories become stories'. I do think there's room for disagreement with his thesis that institutionalisation inevitably and even intentionally corrupts, deceives and `spiritualises' in order to maintain its hold over the faithful: the New Testament seems to see a more organic, chaotic, mysterious transition from Jesus' life and death, via his resurrection, to the first Christian gatherings and onward to the church.

But if his Jesus is, to be sure, far more than the disappointed apocalyptic prophet of 19th century liberal German Protestant theologians, so too his church is a much darker, more corrupt and knowing beast than theirs. His anger towards it, voiced by an increasingly anguished Christ, is correspondingly white hot at times.

Readers of faith would do well to try and measure their institution against the twin poles of Pullman's sparky, disturbing Jesus whose vision `no human being could have borne for long' (225), and the rather tired, cynical, even lying church of his Christ: which one does it resemble more ? Pullman's Christ declares that `his [Jesus'] vision could never come to pass, and the vision that will come to pass is not his' (242). Churches may want to dispute that, but they'd be crazy to ignore the large element of truth The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ  contains.

Can they strip away the dross, and restore to the institution something of the vibrant, energetic passion of Pullman's Jesus, a life so sapped by the supposed demands of institutional existence ? Maybe. They can certainly do a lot worse than let this outstanding book be their provocative and thought-provoking guide to thinking though that awkward, naggingly insistent but vital question. Superb.

The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life

I've got too many books to read... too much wisdom waiting for my intake. So, when I came across this book from a favorite, trusted author who I'd reconnected with through the magic of Twitter, I was reluctant to engage.

It's just a time thing, cost vs. benefit. And to be honest, the title didn't really spell it out for me. I couldn't see the connection with my life and needs. Sure, I have a business have moments of accepting my role as a leader but it's not where my focus is at the moment.

Ahhh... But, as luck would have it, as an author myself I had the good fortune to lay my hands on an early copy. I opened the fresh book planning to scan it for high-points and then file in the "get to it soon," pile... Ha ha.

That scanning turning into reading which turned into a completed book. I can't tell you exactly how but I can tell you that I feel an amazing sense of accomplishment, if only in completing something. More so, I am clear and energized. It's an amazing thing how words can awaken your soul and inspire your purpose.

There's a lifetime of wisdom in this masterpeice--but it's truly the power of the story that makes it work. There's a lot of smarts in every book store, online and in the world but so little knowledge matters for it's never effectively or inspirationally shared. Not the case here. Through a magically vivid story Robin shares a lifetime of transformational wisdom so effectively you won't even feel the pain of learning as it's "resistance free."

And as you may have gathered by now, it's not really a book of leadership, in the traditional sense. It's about LIFE and being a leader of self, an egoless leader of others and most notably a man or woman "at cause" in the world, making a difference. That's what truly matters most in this world we live in today.

If you're a place where you could use a boost of power, hope and confidence... have been thinking you could stand to take a strong handle of control in your life, make this the one book you embrace this year. 

The Wallstrip Edge [Book Terser]

Trends come and go, and if you learn to spot them, they can be wildly profitable. In The Wallstrip Edge, Howard Lindzon shares his techniques on making money from seemingly routine trips to the mall, drives around town and travels through airports. A great read for any observant and active market participant.

I've been investing for 30+ years & this book changed some of my basic concepts
of position trading/investing. This book is now on my "favorites" shelf, along
with books by Mark Douglas, John Carter, Brian Shannon, Tharp & Schwager. 

Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion

After reading this book and then checking out the critiques of it all over the web, it was easy to figure out how threatened most feel about something they have trouble understanding. Barton has these documents he sites. He has actual documents in one of the largest collections of our early historical documents known. Those that refute his work are saying he makes up things, distorts facts, etc. Here's an idea, READ the documents. Jefferson DID setup churches and sign his documents "year of our Lord Christ." It's not a disputable "opinion," it's a fact that can be verified.

For those who are trying so hard to discredit this book, I suggest you do some logical thinking. This nation, and this western world, was highly religious all the way up to the early 20th century when the progressive movement started to try and tear that process down based on the ideas of some extremely insane people who never amounted to anything in life (read Marx.) If there was so much emphasis on religion throughout the western world of Europe and Eurasia, and the original pilgrims leaving Europe to escape religious persecution, why would the founders just suddenly forget all of the heavy emphasis on religion in their days?

The answer is they didn't, it's revisionist dogma to say they did that defies logic and common sense, and while yes a few of the original founders did have different ideas on religion, the idea that they were all atheists is insane. I hope you all realize that a deist didn't mean they didn't believe in god, so you can drop that right now.

Read this book and follow it with the sources and read the full correspondences in original context. You'll find out just how easy it is to verify that religion dominated the time. Then read the top progressive books followed by the communist manifesto and other top socialist/communist books. One theme is common in those books, and it's the hatred toward religion and the idea that religion is what's standing in the way of "progress." To me that's all you need to know. Ask the pilgrims, soviets, and socialist Europeans how well that worked/ is working for them.

Nokia N900 Unlocked Phone/Mobile Computer with 3.5-Inch Touchscreen

Great phone! has everything you could imagine and more. I am absolutely fascinated with it so far, and still got pleanty to discover as i continue using it. The only problem which all large screen cell phones have is the battery life. You will probably have to charge it on a daily basis, which could be a bit annoying for some people, but so far i don't mind.

Cool features:
Radio transmitter: Great for listen to your mp3's while you are driving.
Capacity: 32gb of memory plus up to 16gb with micro sd Video playback quality: Excellent quality almost HD in case it actually is HD
Video/Audio output: Great way to take you movies or songs and play them in every home apart from your own's Dual input keyboard: Both touchscreen and qwerty as well
Opposite to what i heard in many reviews IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO USE AT ALL.

It is pretty intuitive as well.I don't know why some would call it "a nerd phone" because of its interface. Maybe its oriented to programmers but just because it has a programming console, just that. Very cool it runs with a Linux based OS so you can eventually customize it your way. Also there are a lot of great applications you an download done by the community for free!

Overall Excellent phone, very happy with it, would but it a second time

Changes Dresden Files, Book 12 - Jim Butcher

No spoilers in this review, but Wow! Just wow!

On the first page of this book we learn exactly what Harry Dresden's mission and prime focus is going be. Throughout Changes the characters we know and love appear, but the conversations they could/should and probably will have with Harry one day often don't eventuate, because there simply isn't time. Harry has his mission and one sole focus and his friends are either with him or not. There is no time for deep discussions or reflections.

The changes, questions and possibilities accumulate in this book, not just for Harry but for all the characters. I can't wait to see which avenues Jim Butcher will explore now that so many more have opened up. But fans may also be surprised at some of the Dresden familiarities that come to an end.

The final 20 - 25% of this book especially impressed me. It was building up to a huge climax and it certainly didn't disappoint, but we are provided with many surprise twists rather than just one big fight at the end.

There is one particularly enormous WHOA! moment that I guarantee nobody will be expecting.

A wonderful book, a crucial pivot point in the Dresdenverse and after I've taken stock and recharged the kindle I'm off to read it again to see what I missed.

Is it April 2011 yet?

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Plot Summary: Picking up moments after the climactic ending in book two, "The Girl Who Played With Fire," Lisbeth Salander is rushed to the E.R. after taking three bullets, and Mikael Blomkvist is left to pick up the pieces. As Lisbeth lies in the hospital her enemies plot to have her locked away forever, and they begin to tie up loose ends with single-minded self-preservation. There is so much going on it's kind of mind-boggling, but Stieg Larsson keeps the reader sucked in every step of the way.

I was about 60 pages into "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" when I had this sudden image of a plate spinner. You know those circus acts where somebody spins a plate on a wire rod? The amazement comes as more and more plates are added, until an impossible number of plates are spinning away, but they're never allowed to drop. That's how I feel about this story. Stieg Larsson kept an amazing number of subplots spinning throughout this complex story about cover ups, murder, espionage, and friendship. It is so well done. I'm in awe, and I'm also in mourning because this book marks the end of the stories about Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander.

This book is big (576 pages), bold, and twisty like a corkscrew. One of the things I like best about Stieg Larsson's series is that he doesn't save all the surprises for the end either. There's a a really good shock within the first 100 pages or so, and the end floored me too. The courtroom drama had me reading on the edge of my chair, and I was practically doing fist-pumps in the air.

I am having a love affair with Lisbeth Salander, and she managed to be as interesting as ever, even while laying in a hospital bed. She's one of my all-time favorite characters, and it's funny because she's not easy to like at all. Lisbeth thaws a little here, and she accepts help from several quarters, which is good, because she has a rogue government agency gunning for her. She's an inconvenient witness and losing her case has bigger consequences than just going to jail - `they' want to lock her up in a mental institution. Frankly, I was terrified for her.

I highly recommend the Millennium series for fans who want an intelligent, gritty, dense web of intrigue that spans across three stellar books. "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" has been available overseas for eons now (okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration), but for U.S. readers, this book will be released on May 25, 2010. To start at the beginning read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage), and then by Stieg Larsson The Girl Who Played with Fire 1 edition.

Search Patterns: Design for Discovery

Peter Morville's book Ambient Findability is one of the best books on search in its personal and social context, and probably my favourite non-technical O'Reilly book. Once you have read Ambient Findability this is a good follow-up.

Search is becoming a universal solvent in software and media - it has transformed publishing and advertising and is poised to transform business intelligence, enterprise content management, data integration ... and when combined with augmented realities, geolocation and social networks will change how we live with each other. It is a big topic.

There are many things to like about this book: it is visually strong and makes good use of illustrations to bring abstract concepts to life; it covers the basics well; it reinforces the importance of context in search and computing generally (we have to think of context as a first-order object); it expands ones conception or search, search interfaces and the search experience.

I do have a couple of caveats - I agree that this is patterns lite, so lite that I question whether these deserve the name patterns. It does not meet the standards for clear thinking and presentation set in the Gang of Four book. This is not a problem unique to this book, over the past few years there have been many books that play loose with the pattern meme.

I would also have appreciated a deeper dive on the emerging role of semantics in search. The best example of this is the role that Good Relations is playing is searching and finding products on eCommerce sites. I suspect that open and evolving ontologies like Good Relations will transform search over the next decade.

Making it Big in Software: Get the Job. Work the Org. Become Great

Product Description

The Software Insider’s Guide to Getting Hired and Getting to the Top!


Here’s all the information you need to jumpstart your software career: the best ways to get hired, move up, and blaze your way to the top! The software business has radically changed, and this book reveals today’s realities–everything your professors and corporate managers never told you. In his 20 years at IBM as a software architect, senior manager, and lead programmer, Sam Lightstone has briefed dozens of leading companies and universities on careers, new technology, and emerging areas of research. He currently works on one of the world’s largest software development teams and spends a good part of his time recruiting and mentoring software engineers. This book shares all the lessons for success Sam has learned…plus powerful insights from 17 of the industry’s biggest stars. Want to make it big in software? Start right here!

Discover how to

• Get your next job in software development
• Master the nontechnical skills crucial to your success
• “Work the org” to move up rapidly
• Successfully manage your time, projects, and life
• Avoid “killer” mistakes that could destroy your career
• Move up to “medium-shot,” “big-shot,” and finally, “visionary”
• Launch your own winning software company

Exclusive interviews with

Steve Wozniak, Inventor, Apple computer

John Schwarz, CEO, Business Objects

James Gosling, Inventor, Java programming language

Marissa Mayer, Google VP, Search Products and User Experience
Jon Bentley, Author, Programming Pearls
Marc Benioff, CEO and founder, Salesforce.com
Grady Booch, IBM Fellow and co-founder Rational Software
Bjarne Stroustrup, Inventor, C++ programming language
David Vaskevitch, Microsoft CTO
Linus Torvalds, Creator, Linux operating system kernel

Richard Stallman, Founder, Free software movement
Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research
Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Fellow and Windows Architect
Tom Malloy, Adobe Chief Software Architect
Diane Greene, Co-founder and past CEO of VMware
Robert Kahn, Co-inventor, the Internet
Ray Tomlinson, Inventor, email

About the Author

Sam Lightstone is the creator of MakingItBigCareers.com as well as Program Director and Senior Technical Staff Member with IBM’s Software Group, where he works for one of the world’s largest software engineering teams on product strategy and R&D. Sam is a sought-after public speaker, author, inventor, recruiter, and mentor. He has presented to dozens of Fortune 500 companies, industrial and scientific conferences, and major universities on topics related to careers, new technology, and emerging research needs. Sam has been quoted in eWeek, InformationWeek, InfoWorld, and the MIT Technology Review. His management career has spanned from small high-performance applied research teams up to large-scale projects with more than 200 staff across multiple geographies.


Sam is the founder of the IEEE Data Engineering Workgroup on Self Managing Database Systems and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Autonomous and Autonomic Computing Systems. Sam is inventor and co-inventor of more than 30 patents and patents pending and author of several books and scientific papers.

In 2003 he was awarded the title of IBM Master Inventor for his contributions to IBM’s patent portfolio and his sustained work mentoring software engineers about the process of invention. He has a Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University and a Master of Computer Science & Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo.