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Building Scalable Web Sites

Submitted by ron on November 3, 2007 - 12:20

A book detailing how to build and maintain "scalable" web sites. This is a must book if you want to get great tips about building your site, maintaining it, and making sure it is scalable. It also talks about security, performance, optimization, i18n, benchmarking and more issues. It mostly deals with the LAMP architecture, but the ideas can also be helpful for other platforms.

Highly recommended!

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Zero to IPO

Submitted by ron on October 15, 2007 - 08:02
One of our readers has recommended this book. Thanks Naftali!
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Linked - the science of networking

Submitted by ron on August 2, 2007 - 07:31

An interesting book about networks. The author discusses several types of networks (cells in our body, terrorist networks, the internet infrastructure, the web, etc.) and their features. There's an historic account of how this science has evolved in recent years.

Some network characteristics are interesting, especially with the theory of 'hubs' and its relation to viral marketing in social-oriented web sites.
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Founders at Work: Stories of Startups Early Days

Submitted by ron on March 1, 2007 - 17:04

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company.

Where did they get the ideas that made them rich? How did they convince investors to back them? What went wrong, and how did they recover?

Nearly all technical people have thought of one day starting or working for a startup. For them, this book is the closest you can come to being a fly on the wall at a successful startup, to learn how it's done.

But ultimately these interviews are required reading for anyone who wants to understand business, because startups are business reduced to its essence. The reason their founders become rich is that startups do what businesses do--create value--more intensively than almost any other part of the economy. How? What are the secrets that make successful startups so insanely productive? Read this book, and let the founders themselves tell you.

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Engineering Your Start-Up: A Guide for the High-Tech Entrepreneur

Submitted by ron on December 14, 2006 - 15:27
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High Tech Start Up, Revised and Updated: The Complete Handbook For Creating Successful New High Tech Companies

Submitted by ron on December 14, 2006 - 15:26
John Nesheim, an adjunct professor at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, who has personally structured over $300 million in new-venture deals, lays out the step-by-step skinny in High Tech Startup. Incorporating some two dozen case studies spanning the technology spectrum, he presents info specific to this industry that will help you get from concept to IPO. It begins with a 14-phase schedule itemizing time requirements, necessary assistance, typical participants, major costs, main risks, and desired results for each step. It then details all the critical stages (i.e., forming the company, preparing the business plan, assembling the team, dealing with venture capitalists and other funding sources). Nesheim focuses on practical strategies that should certainly improve your chances, but don't start prepping for that on-air interview with Mark Haines just yet: Only six out of 1 million high-tech ideas, he notes, ever become successful companies that go public. --Howard Rothman
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The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

Submitted by ron on December 14, 2006 - 14:32
Kawasaki (Rules for Revolutionaries) draws upon his dual background as an evangelist for Apple's Macintosh computer and as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist in this how-to for launching any type of business project. Each chapter begins with "GIST" ("great ideas for starting things"), covering a variety of facets to consider, from identifying your customer base and writing a business plan to establishing partnerships and building brand identity. Minichapters zero in on particular jobs that will need doing, while FAQ sections address the questions readers are most likely to have: Kawasaki covers the basics in an effectively casual tone. Much of the advice, however, consists of generic banalities—start your company's name with a letter that comes early in the alphabet, use big type in presentation slides for older businessmen with declining eyesight, and avoid writing e-mails in all capital letters—that can be found in any mediocre guide. Fortunately, Kawasaki does rise to the occasion here and there. He goes into great detail when it comes to raising capital and offers effective methods for sorting through the nonsense associated with interviewing prospective employees.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional

Submitted by ron on December 14, 2006 - 14:31
Written for the budding web developer searching for a powerful, low-cost solution for building flexible, dynamic web sites. Essentially three books in one: provides thorough introductions to the PHP language and the MySQL database, and shows you how these two technologies can be effectively integrated to build powerful websites. Provides over 500 code examples, including real-world tasks such as creating an auto-login feature, sending HTML-formatted e-mail, testing password guessability, and uploading files via a web interface. Updated for MySQL 5, includes new chapters introducing triggers, stored procedures, and views.
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HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition

Submitted by ron on December 14, 2006 - 14:30
A good book for web beginners, wanting to learn how to write simple web pages (Or as a basis for further reading into dynamic pages).
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Ajax in Action

Submitted by ron on December 14, 2006 - 14:29
AJAX book for web deveopers. 
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