If you’ve heard about Skype–and who hasn’t with all the recent media attention devoted to Internet telephone services–chances are you’ve been mighty tempted to try it out. Skype Hacks tells you what all the Skype hype is about, explains the basics, and shows you more than 100 clever tips and tricks for tweaking and tuning Skype to make it do just what you want and more.
Millions of people (48 million and counting, in fact) have opted for Skype, which uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to turn any PC, Mac, or Pocket PC into a telephone. Skype offers free calls between computers and extremely cheap calls to “old-fashioned” phone numbers (landlines and mobile phones). The sound quality is excellent, and end-to-end encryption means the connection is private and secure. (more…)

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There is currently no book on the market that has a case-study focus and builds e-commerce sites using the new Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Framework. In addition, many of the books that are likely to be released in the near future won’t target the intermediate to advanced developer. Building e-commerce Sites describes the steps a developer will take to plan, develop and deploy an actual robust, scalable e-commerce application using the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. There are detailed descriptions of design choices a developer makes, implementation details. The author’s first hand experience will save the reader time and effort. Finally, the development of a working, modern e-commerce site is provided, in this case study approach, along with clear and simple explanations, screenshots, and step-by-step code excerpts. (more…)

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From the reviews of the Second Edition “The book stresses how systems operate and the rationale behind their design, rather than presenting rigorous analytical formulations [It provides] the practicality and breadth essential to mastering the concepts of modern communications systems.” Telecommunication Journal In this expanded new edition of his bestselling book, telephony expert John Bellamy continues to provide telecommunications engineers with practical, comprehensive coverage of all aspects of digital telephone systems, while addressing the rapid changes the field has seen in recent years. Bellamy discusses the near-complete conversion to digital technology in telephone networks (more…)

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If you liked the eerie whimsy of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Steven Millhauser’s Little Kingdoms, or Jorge Luis Borges’s Labyrinths, you will love Alan Lightman’s ethereal yet down-to-earth book Einstein’s Dreams. Lightman teaches physics and writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, helping bridge the light-year-size gap between science and the humanities, the enemy camps C.P. Snow famously called The Two Cultures.
Einstein’s Dreams became a bestseller by delighting both scientists and humanists. It is technically a novel. Lightman uses simple, lyrical, and literal details to locate Einstein precisely in a place and time–Berne, Switzerland, spring 1905, when he was a patent clerk privately working on his bizarre, unheard-of theory of relativity. The town he perceives is vividly described, but the waking Einstein is a bit player in this drama.
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