Books about Technologies from Amazon.com

Updated Edition: Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist His aim in The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists--the optimistic ones at least--are inevitably prey to.

What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments--when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East--is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete--and win--not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. (He doesn't forget the "mutant supply chains" like Al-Qaeda that let the small act big in more destructive ways.)

Friedman has embraced this flat world in his own work, continuing to report on his story after his book's release and releasing an unprecedented hardcover update of the book a year later with 100 pages of revised and expanded material. What's changed in a year? Some of the sections that opened eyes in the first edition--on China and India, for example, and the global supply chain--are largely unaltered. Instead, Friedman has more to say about what he now calls "uploading," the direct-from-the-bottom creation of culture, knowledge, and innovation through blogging, podcasts, and open-source software. And in response to the pleas of many of his readers about how to survive the new flat world, he makes specific recommendations about the technical and creative training he thinks will be required to compete in the "New Middle" class. As before, Friedman tells his story with the catchy slogans and globe-hopping anecdotes that readers of his earlier books and his New York Times columns know well, and he holds to a stern sort of optimism. He wants to tell you how exciting this new world is, but he also wants you to know you're going to be trampled if you don't keep up with it. A year later, one can sense his rising impatience that our popular culture, and our political leaders, are not helping us keep pace. --Tom Nissley

Where Were You When the World Went Flat?

Thomas L. Friedman's reporter's curiosity and his ability to recognize the patterns behind the most complex global developments have made him one of the most entertaining and authoritative sources for information about the wider world we live in, both as the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times and as the author of landmark books like From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. They also make him an endlessly fascinating conversation partner, and we've now had the chance to talk to him about The World Is Flat twice. Read our original interview with him following the publication of the first edition of The World Is Flat to learn why there's almost no one from Washington, D.C., listed in the index of a book about the global economy, and what his one-plank platform for president would be. (Hint: his bumper stickers would say, "Can You Hear Me Now?")

And now you can listen to our second interview, in which he talks about the updates he's made in "The World Is Flat 2.0," including his response to parents who said to him, "Great, Mr. Friedman, I'm glad you told us the world is flat. Now what do I tell my kids?"

The Essential Tom Friedman

From Beirut to Jerusalem

The Lexus and the Olive Tree

Longitudes and Attitudes

More on Globalization and Development

China, Inc. by Ted Fishman	Three Billion New Capitalists by Clyde Prestowitz	The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs
Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz	The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli	The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto

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For the past three decades, the Shelly Cashman Series has effectively introduced computer skills to millions of individuals With Microsoft Office 2007, we are continuing our history of innovation by enhancing our proven pedagogy to reflect the learning styles of todays users. You will find features that are specifically designed to engage learners, improve retention and prepare the user for success. Our trademark step-by-step, screen-by-screen approach now encourages the reader to expand their understanding of the Microsoft Office 2007 software through experimentation, exploration and planning ahead..
Price: $86.63 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Composition teachers throughout the English-speaking world have been pushing this book on their students since it was first published in 1957. Co-author White later revised it, and it remains the most compact and lucid handbook we have for matters of basic principles of composition, grammar, word usage and misusage, and writing style..
Price: $4.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, the odds are high that you've delivered a high-stakes presentation to your peers, your boss, your customers, or the general public. Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void.

Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore's Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world's leading brands. With slide:ology you'll learn to:

• Connect with specific audiences
• Turn ideas into informative graphics
• Use sketching and diagramming techniques effectively
• Create graphics that enable audiences to process information easily
• Develop truly influential presentations
• Utilize presentation technology to your advantage

Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced -- and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause..
Price: $19.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Stephen Windwalker's latest book is the premier guide for Kindle owners -- written for serious readers rather than gadget heads, 51,000 words in length and newly packed with great tips. 192 "print" pages, including a detailed, link-enabled FAQ section (Originally published in beta editions as How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Over 100 Pages of Other Cool Tips.)

If you’ve already purchased and downloaded it, you can get the latest iteration onto your Kindle at no additional charge with just a couple of clicks on your computer. Just go to "Your Media Library" under your personal Amazon account, pull down your “Kindle Books” list under the Downloads tab, find this book (clicking on the title will confirm your purchase and purchase date), and click on the right where there’s a “Send wirelessly to your Kindle” button. Also included, for Kindle owners who are considering giving another Kindle as a gift to a colleague, friend, or loved one: information on how to send this book **free** as the first book on the new gift Kindle, and a link to get the new Kindle for just $259!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I. How to Use this Book
II. What is a Kindle?
-What’s Inside the Kindle?
-Why Did Amazon Launch the Kindle, and Which is More Important, the Chicken or the Egg?
III. Kindle Basics
-Handling Your Kindle
-Choosing Among Six Font Sizes
-Kindle Keyboard and Menu Shortcuts
-The Care and Feeding of Your Kindle's Battery
-The Reset Button is Your First Tech Support Option
-Access Wikipedia Quickly and Smoothly
-Using "Locations" to Figure Out How Close You Are to the End of a Kindle Edition
-Buying and Sampling Content for Your Kindle From the Amazon Kindle Store
-Updating the Latest Version of Your Kindle’s Operating Software
-Adding an SD Card to Your Kindle
-Getting Help with Your Kindle
-Managing Your Kindle Content
IV. The Amazon Kindle Basic Web Wireless Service: Why It Is a Revolutionary Feature, and Why Amazon Should Keep It Free or Cheap
V. How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email
VI. Using Google Reader to Read Your Favorite Blogs on the Amazon Kindle
VII. Traveling with Your Kindle
-Using the Kindle to Translate Foreign or Technical Words and Phrases
-Making the Most of Your Kindle Connections Overseas or in a Sprint Wireless Dead Zone
-Using the Kindle as a Travel Guide
-The Kindle and GPS - Intriguing but Frustrating
-Checking Sprint Wireless Coverage for the Kindle
-Downloading Kindle Editions Via USB Cable
VIII. The Kindle as a Writing, Editing, and Publishing Device
-Taking Notes on the Kindle - It's All in the Thumbs
-Annotation within a Kindle Document
-Google Notebook
-Annotating Your Working Documents
-Writing and Annotation to Email
-Saving, Printing, Editing and Working With Your Kindle Clippings, Annotations, and Highlighted Text
-20 Steps to Publishing a Kindle Edition of Your Book or Document: How to Use Kindle, Amazon and the Web to Market Your Book and Connect with Readers
-Other Links for Publishing Content for the Kindle
IX. Projecting a Kindle Future
-How Many Kindles? Estimating the Current and Future "Installed Base," and Why It Is Important
-The Golden Age of Kindle 2.0 and Beyond
-Kindle Reading Subscriptions
-Kindle Buffet
-Kindle Groups
-Kindle Owners as Kindle Sellers
-Kindle Content Affiliate Program
-Shop the Amazon Store Through a Kindle Gateway
A Big Tent for Kindle Content Availability On Other Devices
Shop and Play Amazon Music and Audio
Kindle Tribes
“Living Books” on the Kindle
Other Fixes for Kindle 2.0 and Beyond
Folders and/or Labels
Size, Location and Configuration of Bars, Buttons, and Switches
The Kindle Display Screen
Writeable Screen
Adjustable Fonts
Go Global
Open the Kindle Store to Accessories
Green Tax Credit
Screen and Keyboard Freezes
Gifts
Make the Kindle More Kid-Friendly
Real USB Port or Bluetooth for Hardware Connectivity with Memory Devices, Keyboards &c
X. 20 More Kindle Tips and Tricks
Link-Enabled Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
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KEY BENEFIT: With each edition of her top-selling Human Anatomy & Physiology text, Elaine N. Marieb draws on her own, unique experience as a full-time A&P professor and part-time nursing student to explain concepts and processes in a meaningful and memorable way. With the Seventh Edition, Dr. Marieb has teamed up with co-author Katja Hoehn to produce the most exciting edition yet, with beautifully-enhanced muscle illustrations, updated coverage of factual material and topic boxes, new coverage of high-interest topics such as Botox, designer drugs, and cancer treatment, and a comprehensive instructor and student media package. The Human Body: An Orientation, Chemistry Comes Alive, Cells: The Living Units, Tissue: The Living Fabric, The Integumentary System, Bones and Skeletal Tissues, The Skeleton, Joints, Muscles and Muscle Tissue, The Muscular System, Fundamentals of the Nervous System and Nervous Tissue, The Central Nervous System, The Peripheral Nervous System and Reflex Activity, The Autonomic Nervous System, The Special Senses, The Endocrine System, Blood, The Cardiovascular System: The Heart, The Cardiovascular System: Blood Vessels, The Lymphatic System, The Immune System: Innate and Adaptive Body Defensives, The Respiratory System, The Digestive System, Nutrition, Metabolism, and Body Temperature Regulation, The Urinary System, Fluid, Electrolyte, and Acid-Base Balance, The Reproductive System, Pregnancy and Human Development, Heredity For all readers interested in human anatomy & physiology..
Price: $119.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The classic visual guide to the basics of building construction, now with the most current information

For nearly three decades, Building Construction Illustrated has offered an outstanding introduction to the principles of building construction. This new edition of the revered classic remains as relevant as ever-providing the latest information in Francis D.K. Ching's signature style. Its rich and comprehensive approach clearly presents all of the basic concepts underlying building construction and equips readers with useful guidelines for approaching virtually any new materials or techniques they may encounter.

Laying out the material and structural choices available, it provides a full under-standing of how these choices affect a building's form and dimensions. Complete with more than 1,000 illustrations, the book moves through each of the key stages of the design process, from site selection to building components, mechanical systems, and finishes.
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Illustrated throughout with clear and accurate drawings that present the state of the art in construction processes and materials
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Updated and revised to include the latest knowledge on sustainability, incorporation of building systems, and use of new materials
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Archetypal drawings offer clear inspiration for designers and drafters
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Reflects the most current building codes and CSI Master Format numbering scheme

With its comprehensive and lucid presentation of everything from foundations and floor systems to finish work, Building Construction Illustrated, Fourth Edition equips students and professionals in all areas of architecture and construction with useful guidelines for approaching virtually any new materials or techniques they may encounter in building planning, design, and construction..
Price: $27.68 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $10.96 [Notify me when price goes down.]

While Adobe Photoshop has long been their choice for editing digital photographs, many photographers want a more focused tool. That’s where Adobe Photoshop Lightroom comes in. Designed from the ground up with digital photographers in mind, Photoshop Lightroom offers powerful editing features in a streamlined interface that lets photographers import, sort, and organize images. This completely updated and expanded bestseller, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book, was also written with photographers in mind. Author Martin Evening describes features in Photoshop Lightroom 2 in detail from a photographer’s perspective. As an established commercial and fashion photographer, Martin knows first-hand what photographers need for an efficient workflow. He has also been working with Lightroom from the beginning, monitoring the product’s development and providing feedback on the public beta. As a result, Martin knows the software inside and out, from image selection to image editing to image management.

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book contains 624 pages of comprehensive and detailed coverage of all aspects of Lightroom. In this book you’ll learn how to:

• Work efficiently with images shot in the raw or JPEG format
• Import photographs with ease and sort them according to your workflow
• Create and manage a personal image library
• Apply tonal adjustments to multiple images quickly
• Integrate Photoshop Lightroom with Adobe Photoshop
• Export images for print or Web as digital contact sheets or personal
portfolios

The book structure has been organized to match a typical Lightroom workflow. The introductory chapter provides an overview of all the main Lightroom features, showing how Lightroom 2 was used on a studio photo shoot that was specially shot to illustrate the book. The following chapters cover all the essentials, such as importing photos, working with the Library module, and managing the catalog database. The biggest section of the book is devoted to working with the Develop module and provides some unique insights into working with new features such as the localized adjustment tools. There is also a whole chapter devoted to image sharpening and another on integrating Lightroom and Photoshop, where you will learn how to devise the best workflow methods for working between these two programs. This is followed by a chapter on printing and a presentation chapter on the Slideshow and Web modules. Lastly, there are two appendix chapters. One offers a complete overview of the Lightroom 2 preference settings, while the other provides some in-depth explanations and background reading on how the Lightroom program works.

The book is richly illustrated, mostly using the author’s own photographs, and one of the nice features of this book is the way enlarged panel views are used throughout, making it easier for readers to follow the settings used in the various step-by-step examples. There are also lots of tips that will help you take your Lightroom techniques to an advanced level.

If you are looking for the most comprehensive coverage of Lightroom, written by an author who is closely involved with the development of the program, this is the book to get.

About the Author
Martin Evening is a London-based advertising and fashion photographer and noted expert in both photography and digital imaging. In addition to being a bestselling author, Martin is sought after for speaking and lecturing. He also works with the Photoshop and Lightroom engineering teams, consulting on new feature development and alpha and beta testing. He is one of the founding members of PixelGenius, a software design company producing automated production and creative plug-ins for Photoshop.




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Written by New York Times columnist and Missing Manual series creator David Pogue, this first-to-market update shows readers and tire kickers everything they need to know to get the most out of their new Apple iPhone. As beautiful as the product it covers, this full-color book helps readers accomplish everything from Web browsing to watching videos.

Author David Pogue's iPhone 2E Tips
The beauty of the new iPhone 3G is that you don't need one. Almost all of the juicy stuff actually comes with the iPhone 2.0 software and the online App Store, both of which run perfectly well on the old iPhone as well. That, incidentally, is also the beauty of iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition. It covers both the old and the new iPhones, because it covers the 2.0 software, the iPhone App Store, and so on. Here are a few of my favorite tips from the book:

1) At the top of the screen, little icons indicate how you're connected to the Internet: an E for the vast but dog-slow AT&T Edge network, a 3G icon if you're on the faster but limited-area AT&T third-generation network, and radiating signal bars if you're on Wi-Fi. The tip here: The two cellular icons (E and 3G) disappear whenever you're on Wi-Fi. That's not a mistake. The iPhone assumes that Wi-Fi is faster and better than any cellular network, and if you're on it, you don't care about E or 3G (and it's right).

2) Unfortunately, 3G is a battery hog. If you don't see a 3G icon on your iPhone 3G's status bar, then you're not in a 3G hot spot, and you're not getting any benefit from the phone's 3G radio. By turning it off, you'll double the length of your iPhone 3G's battery power, from 5 hours of talk time to 10. To do so, from the Home screen, tap Settings->General->Network-> Enable 3G Off. Yes, this is sort of a hassle, but if you're anticipating a long day and you can't risk the battery dying halfway through, it might be worth doing. After all, most 3G phones don't even let you turn off their 3G circuitry.

3) More ways to save power: turn off more features. In Settings, you can turn off Bluetooth; Wi-Fi; GPS; "push" data; and the cellphone radio. Each saves you another bit of power.

4) When typing on the on-screen keyboard, you can save time by deliberately leaving out the apostrophe in contractions like I'm, don't, can't, and so on. Type im, dont, cant, and so on. The iPhone proposes I'm, don't, or can't, so you can just tap the Space bar to fix the word and continue.

5) To produce an accented character (like é, ë, è, ê, and so on), keep your finger pressed on that key for 1 second. A palette of accented alternatives appears; slide onto the one you want. (Keys that sprout these alternative versions: E, Y, U, I, O, S, L, Z, C, N, ?, ', ", $, and !.)

6) Even if you've engaged the silencer switch on the side, the iPhone still sounds any alarm you've set. Good to know.

7) You probably already know that you can rearrange your Home screen, and even set up multiple Home screens (up to 9). Just hold your finger down on any one icon until they all begin to wiggle. Now you can drag them to rearrange them (even onto the Dock of four special icons at the bottom), or drag off to the right to create a new Home screen. And what if, in the process of downloading and then deleting new App store programs, you wind up with unsightly gaps on your Home screens? Here's a quick way to consolidate them onto a smaller number of full Home screens, without gaps: tap Settings->General-> Reset->Reset Home Screen Layout. If you'd put 10 programs on each of four Home screens, you wind up with only two screens, each packed with 20 icons. Any leftover blank pages are eliminated.

8) If you come to the iPhone from another, lesser GSM phone, your phone book may be stored on its little SIM card instead of in the phone itself . In that case, you don't have to retype all of those names and numbers to bring them into your iPhone. In Settings->Contacts, the new Import SIM Contacts button can do the job for you. (The results may not be pretty. For example, some phones store all address-book data in CAPITAL LETTERS.)

9) If you've indulged yourself by downloading some goodies from the App Store, then you may find yourself wondering where you're supposed to adjust their preferences. Turns out they often get stashed away in a completely different program—in Settings. That's where Apple encourages software authors to locate their own setting screens. For example, here's where you can edit your screen name and password for the AIM chat program, change how many days' worth of news you want the NY Times Reader to display, and so on.

10) Don't type http://www or .com when entering Web addresses. Safari is smart enough to know that most Web addresses use that format—so you can leave all that stuff out, and it will supply them automatically. Instead of http://www.cnn.com, for example, just type cnn and hit Go.

11) Don't type .net, .org, or .edu, either. Safari's secret pop-up menu of canned URL choices can save you four keyboard-taps apiece. To see it, hold your finger down on the .com button. Then tap the common suffix you want.

12) The iPhone can now geotag the photos you take with it. Geotagging means, "embedding your latitude and longitude information into a photo when you take it." After all, every digital picture you've ever taken comes with its time and date invisibly embedded in its file; why not its location? So the good news is that the iPhone can geotag every photo you take. How you get to see this information, is a bit trickier. Once the photos are synced to your computer, you can view the geotag information in iPhoto (the Get Info command reveals latitude and longitude), Preview (the Inspector window shows a map), Picasa (use the Tools->Geotag menu to see the photo's location in Google Earth). Unfortunately, the iPhone strips away the geotags whenever you send a photo by e-mail. That's a good argument for using the free downloadable program AirMe instead of the iPhone's built-in camera program. It avoids that geotag-stripping problem and many others.
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Price: $16.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]