Books about Metadata from Amazon.com

The post-Ajaxian Web 2.0 world of wikis, folksonomies, and mashups makes well-planned information architecture even more essential How do you present large volumes of information to people who need to find what they're looking for quickly? This classic primer shows information architects, designers, and web site developers how to build large-scale and maintainable web sites that are appealing and easy to navigate.

The new edition is thoroughly updated to address emerging technologies -- with recent examples, new scenarios, and information on best practices -- while maintaining its focus on fundamentals. With topics that range from aesthetics to mechanics, "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web" explains how to create interfaces that users can understand right away. Inside, you'll find: An overview of information architecture for both newcomers and experienced practitioners The fundamental components of an architecture, illustrating the interconnected nature of these systems. Updated, with updates for tagging, folksonomies, social classification, and guided navigation Tools, techniques, and methods that take you from research to strategy and design to implementation. This edition discusses blueprints, wireframes and the role of diagrams in the design phase A series of short essays that provide practical tips and philosophical advice for those who work on information architecture The business context of practicing and promoting information architecture, including recent lessons on how to handle enterprise architecture Case studies on the evolution of two large and very different information architectures, illustrating best practices along the way

How do you documentthe rich interfaces of web applications? How do you design for multiple platforms and mobile devices? With emphasis on goals and approaches over tactics or technologies, this enormously popular book gives you knowledge about information architecture with a framework that allows you to learn new approaches -- and unlearn outmoded ones..
Price: $17.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

PowerShell replaces cobbled-together assemblies of third-party management tools with an elegant programming language and a powerful scripting shell for the Windows environment. In the tradition of Manning's ground breaking "In Action" series, this book comes from right from the source. Written by Bruce Payette, one of principal creators of PowerShell, Windows PowerShell in Action shows you how to build scripts and utilities to automate system tasks or create powerful system management tools to handle the day-to-day tasks that drive a Windows administrator's life. Because it's based on the .NET platform, PowerShell is also a powerful tool for developers and power users.

Windows PowerShell in Action was written by Bruce Payette, one of the founding members of the Windows PowerShell team, co-designer of the PowerShell language and the principal author of the PowerShell language implementation. The book enables you to get the most out of the PowerShell environment. Using many examples, both small and large, this book illustrates the features of the language and environment and shows how to compose those features into solutions, quickly and effectively.

This book is designed for anyone who wants to learn PowerShell and use it well. Rather than simply being a book of recipes to read and apply, this book gives you the deep knowledge about how PowerShell works and how to apply it..
Price: $22.57 [Notify me when price goes down.]

There are many reasons for serving up dynamic content from a web site: to offer an online shopping site, create customized information pages for users, or just manage a large volume of content through a database. Anyone with a modest knowledge of HTML and web site management can learn to create dynamic content through the PHP programming language and the MySQL database. This book gives you the background and tools to do the job safely and reliably.

"Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL," Second Edition thoroughly reflects the needs of real-world applications. It goes into detail on such practical issues as validating input (do you know what a proper credit card number looks like?), logging in users, and using templates

to give your dynamic web pages a standard look.

But this book goes even further. It shows how JavaScript and PHP can be used in tandem to make a user's experience faster and more pleasant. It shows the correct way to handle errors in user input so that a site looks professional. It introduces the vast collection of powerful tools available in the PEAR repository and shows how to use some of the most popular tools.

Even while it serves as an introduction to new programmers, the book does not omit critical tasks that web sites require. For instance, every site that allows updates must handle the possibility of multiple users accessing data at the same time. This book explains how to solve the problem in detail with locking.

Through a sophisticated sample application--Hugh and Dave's Wine Store--all the important techniques of dynamic content are introduced. Good design is emphasized, such as dividing logic from presentation. The book introducesPHP 5 and MySQL 4.1 features, while providing techniques that can be used on older versions of the software that are still in widespread use.

This new edition has been redesigned around the rich offerings of PEAR. Several of these, including the Template package and the database-independent query API, are fully integrated into examples and thoroughly described in the text. Topics include:

Installation and configuration of Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Unix(R), Windows(R), and Mac OS(R) X systems

Introductions to PHP, SQL, and MySQL administration

Session management, including the use of a custom database for improved efficiency

User input validation, security, and authentication

The PEAR repository, plus details on the use of PEAR DB and Template classes

Production of PDF reports

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Price: $19.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The promise of the Semantic Web to provide a universal medium to exchange data information and knowledge has been well publicized. There are many sources too for basic information on the extensions to the WWW that permit content to be expressed in natural language yet used by software agents to easily find, share and integrate information. Until now individuals engaged in creating ontologies-- formal descriptions of the concepts, terms, and relationships within a given knowledge domain-- have had no sources beyond the technical standards documents.

Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist transforms this information into the practical knowledge that programmers and subject domain experts need. Authors Allemang and Hendler begin with solutions to the basic problems, but dont stop there: they demonstrate how to develop your own solutions to problems of increasing complexity and ensure that your skills will keep pace with the continued evolution of the Semantic Web.

Provides practical information for all programmers and subject matter experts engaged in modeling data to fit the requirements of the Semantic Web.
De-emphasizes algorithms and proofs, focusing instead on real-world problems, creative solutions, and highly illustrative examples.
Presents detailed, ready-to-apply recipes for use in many specific situations.
Shows how to create new recipes from RDF, RDFS, and OWL constructs..
Price: $40.05 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Can you find your digital photographs when you need them, or do you spend more time rifling through your hard drive and file cabinets than you'd like? Do you have a system for assigning and tracking content data on your photos? If you make a living as a photographer, do your images bear your copyright and contact information, or do they circulate in the marketplace unprotected?

As professional photographer and author Peter Krogh sees it, "your DAM system is fundamental to the way your images are known, both to you and to everyone else." DAM, or Digital Asset Management, in the world of digital photography refers to every part of the process that follows the taking of the picture, through final output and permanent storage. Anyone who shoots, scans or stores digital photographs, is practicing some form of digital asset management. Unfortunately, most of us don't yet know how to manage our files (and our time) very systematically, or efficiently.

In The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, Krogh brings clarity to the often overwhelming task of managing digital photographs, with a solid plan and practical advice for fellow photographers on how to file, find, protect and re-use photographs. Following a thorough overview of the DAM system and de-mystifications of metadata and digital archiving, Krogh focuses on best practices for digital photographers using Adobe Photoshop CS2. He explains how to use Adobe Bridge, the new CS2 navigational software that replaces the File Browser introduced in Photoshop 7, with full details on integrating Bridge, Camera Raw and Digital Asset Management software.

Compellingly presented in four-color format, The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers brings Krogh's award-winning creative approach to a subject that could have been technically intimidating. Instead, Krogh's twenty years of experience and instructive visual storytelling make this material not only accessible, but compulsory reading for serious digital photographers.

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Price: $19.42 [Notify me when price goes down.]

As users come to depend on MySQL, they find that they have to deal with issues of reliability, scalability, and performance--issues that are not well documented but are critical to a smoothly functioning site. This book is an insider's guide to these little understood topics.

Author Jeremy Zawodny has managed large numbers of MySQL servers for mission-critical work at Yahoo!, maintained years of contacts with the MySQL AB team, and presents regularly at conferences. Jeremy and Derek have spent months experimenting, interviewing major users of MySQL, talking to MySQL AB, benchmarking, and writing some of their own tools in order to produce the information in this book.

In "High Performance MySQL" you will learn about MySQL indexing and optimization in depth so you can make better use of these key features. You will learn practical replication, backup, and load-balancing strategies with information that goes beyond available tools to discuss their effects in real-life environments. And you'll learn the supporting techniques you need to carry out these tasks, including advanced configuration, benchmarking, and investigating logs.

Topics include:

A review of configuration and setup options

Storage engines and table types

Benchmarking

Indexes

Query Optimization

Application Design

Server Performance

Replication

Load-balancing

Backup and Recovery

Security.
Price: $40.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Tagging is fast becoming one of the primary ways people organize and manage digital information. Tagging complements traditional organizational tools like folders and search on users desktops as well as on the web. These developments mean that tagging has broad implications for information management, information architecture and interface design. And its reach extends beyond these technical domains to our culture at large. We can imagine, for example, the scrapbookers of the future curating their digital photos, emails, ticket stubs and other mementos with tags. This book explains the value of tagging, explores why people tag, how tagging works and when it can be used to improve the user experience. It exposes tagging's superficial simplicity to reveal interesting issues related to usability, information architecture, online community and collective intelligence..
Price: $19.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In recent years, companies and government agencies have come to realize that the data they use represent a significant corporate resource, whose cost calls for management every bit as rigorous as the management of human resources, money, and capital equipment. With this realization has come recognition of the importance to integrate the data that has traditionally only been available from disparate sources.

An important component of this integration is the management of the "metadata" that describe, catalogue, and provide access to the various forms of underlying business data. The "metadata repository" is essential keeping track both of the various physical components of these systems, but also their semantics. What do we mean by "customer?" Where can we find information about our customers?

After years of building enterprise models for the oil, pharmaceutical, banking, and other industries, Dave Hay has here not only developed a conceptual model of such a metadata repository, he has in fact created a true enterprise data model of the information technology industry itself.

* A comprehensive work based on the Zachman Framework for information architecture-encompassing the Business Owner's, Architect's, and Designer's views, for all columns (data, activities, locations, people, timing, and motivation)
* Provides a step-by-step description of model and is organized so that different readers can benefit from different parts
* Provides a view of the world being addressed by all the techniques, methods and tools of the information processing industry (for example, object-oriented design, CASE, business process re-engineering, etc.)
* Presents many concepts that are not currently being addressed by such tools - and should be.
Price: $56.16 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Praise for the First Edition:
"An excellent starting point for information professionals to gain a basic understanding of fundamental concepts, then move ahead with a guided path for further research and study." --Art Documentation
Metadata, literally "data about data," provides a means of indexing, accessing, preserving, and discovering digital resources. The volume of digital information available over electronic networks has created a pressing need for standards that assist in locating, retrieving, and managing this vast and complex universe of information.
This revised edition of Introduction to Metadata, first published in 1998 and updated in an online version in 2000, provides an overview of metadata--its types, roles, and characteristics; a discussion of metadata as it relates to resources on the Web; a description of methods, tools, standards, and protocols that can be used to publish and disseminate digital collections; and a handy glossary. Newly added to this edition are an essay on the importance of standards-based rights metadata to the activities of cultural institutions; and a section entitled "Practical Principles for Metadata Creation and Maintenance."
The Introduction To series deals with complex issues and tools related to the production, management, and dissemination of cultural heritage information resources..
Price: $18.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]

People have a hard time communicating, and also have a hard time finding business knowledge in the environment. With the sophistication of search technologies like Google, business people expect to be able to get their questions answered about the business just like you can do an internet search. The truth is, knowledge management is primitive today, and it is due to the fact that we have poor business metadata management.

This book is about all the groundwork necessary for IT to really support the business properly. By providing not just data, but the context behind the data. For the IT professional, it will be tactically practical--very "how to" and a detailed approach to implementing best practices supporting knowledge management. And for the the IT or other manager who needs a guide for creating and justifying projects, it will help provide a strategic map.

* First book that helps businesses capture corporate (human) knowledge and unstructured data, and offer solutions for codifying it for use in IT and management.

* Written by Bill Inmon, one of the fathers of the data warehouse and well-known author, and filled with war stories, examples, and cases from current projects.

* Very practical, includes a complete metadata acquisition methodology and project plan to guide readers every step of the way.

* Includes sample unstructured metadata for use in self-testing and developing skills..
Price: $38.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]