Originally printed in 1954 and now into its umpteen jillionth printing, this timeless classic was reminded to us by TNPCer Mike L. Mark Twain once said there are “lies,” “damned lies,” and “statistics.” This is the book that lays out how facts with figures can be used to pull the wool over your eyes and “prove” a totally biased point. Faster than a crooked roulette wheel Huff points out ways to warp the sample study, trick with the tabulation method, or intrigue with the interview technique. If you ever thought that statistics were being used to prove up is really down (and with elections gearing up here in the USA who hasn’t?) you’ll get a lot out of this book.

Essential Perl 5 for Web Professionals by Micah Brown, Chris Bellew, and Dan Livingston. Published by Prentice Hall.

This small book aims to get you up to speed on using Perl in the context of a web site. It does not assume a prior knowledge of Perl. With this book you could get some simple CGI interactivity on your site.

If you have no familiarity with Perl this would be a good start. I would not use the scripts on a live web site. They need to have security measures put in to avoid malicious users. Security does not appear in the index. That said this is an accessible book and the examples use situations you will recognize.

I think a better general introduction to Perl is Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz.

Seeing the words System Administration in the title of this book
may scare some of you off. I believe System Administration
encompasses many types of jobs today. At the core System
Administrators have a set of routine tasks that must be done
daily, weekly, monthly and at the same time have *many*
interruptions and fires to put out. Does this sound similar to
your job? If so you may want to give this book a chance.

The core of the book is the Cycle System. This refers to a task
and its cycle through your calander, to-do, delegation, follow
up, and other systems.

I described the Cycle System to a friend of mine and he asked me
how it compared to David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD). If
you have read GTD you will find similarities. There is more in
here than just GTD.

What I found useful was seeing time management techniques and
principles applied to specific situations. Too many time
management books have general principles applied to general
situations. You try to implement the system and start finding
problems. Now you have more frustration than you started with.
This book already understands the frustrations a system
administrator encounters.

There area only a few sections that get really technical. Most
of the book and tips are useable by anyone in an environment
that has many interruptions and unavoidable emergencies.
Depending on your situation you may find it difficult to
implement some of his technical solutions. Don’t let that deter
you. The principles are sound and you will find ways to
implement them.

In short – I recommend this book to anyone in an administrative
position. It is geared toward System Administrators but you will
find useful

More info at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596007833/tnpcnewsletter

David Allen’s Getting Things Done:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0142000280/tnpcnewsletter?tag=tnpcnewsletter?tag=tnpcnewsletter

This week both my wife and a couple of my children were having
some pain. It was referred pain, meaning the pain originated
somewhere other than where you feel it. How do you know if it is
referred pain? Simply push on the pain and see if you can touch
it. If you can’t it is referred pain.

In all three cases here the pain was referred. My wife had pain
on her upper arm, my son near his hip, and daughter on the front
her leg. So we pulled out our copy of “The Trigger Point Therapy
Workbook” by Clair Davies. All three were helped by the
information in this book.

I found this interesting book while researching Fibromyalgia and
TMJ a few years ago. Nobody in my family has Firbromyalgia but a
friend of mine does and I wanted to know more about it. I have
TMJ that acts up on occasion. Somebody suggested this book and
I picked up a copy. It took a bit to understand the concept and
how to apply it but the result has been worth it.

The author began researching trigger points to help with a
frozen shoulder. The technique involves applying short, repeated
massage strokes to trigger points, tiny contraction knots in
muscle tissue where restricted circulation and lack of oxygen
cause referred pain. My family has found this book useful and I
have shared it with everyone I meet who is having pain. Read the
description at Amazon and see if it might be helpful to you to:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572243759/tnpcnewsletter?tag=tnpcnewsletter

This week I am reading PGP & GPG – email for the practical paranoid by Michael W. Lucas.

PGP is short for “Pretty Good Privacy.” It is a military grade encryption technology for protecting data and is defined by the The OpenPGP standard. The two most popular programs that implement OpenPGP are PGP (commercial software) and GPG (open source software).

PGP has a long history on the Internet. This history takes on particular significance in these heightened days of security. Phil Zimmermann, the author of PGP, was pursued by the US Government for several years. It is a fascinating story but too long to detail here. The book we are discussing gives a very brief overview of Zimmermann and his troubles.

You may currently believe you do not need to use encryption. Think again and think of your email. Any email you send should be considered a postcard. Anybody between you and the recipient of your email can read what has been written. And there are lots of stops along the way.

If you have something you don’t want other people to read use encryption. It is as simple as that.

This book does a good job of making it easy to understand how to choose between PGP and GPG, install the program, integrate with most of popular email clients, and actually use the software. The total focus of the book is using PGP with email.

What the book doesn’t explain is how to use PGP for other day to day tasks. This is where you will find encryption very helpful. I prefer to use a single product for all my encryption needs rather than one for email, one for files, etc. I like PGP because it is widely available, easy to use once you understand it, and works the same on every system I use.

In my book Tame Your Email you can read the section near the end of the book for an overview of how to use PGP with email, individual files, and for protecting multiple files at once. So start there and if PGP interests you, but you still find it confusing take a look at Michael Lucas’ book. Once you get PGP figured out you will have a handy and powerful tool at your disposal.

I am a strong advocate of using encryption and PGP is my tool of choice. If you aren’t using encryption now – start. You will be ahead in the game and won’t have to play catch up when you need it. “PGP and GPG” is good way to get started and up to speed using these powerful tools for yourself.

Find more information on this book at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1593270712/tnpcnewsletter?tag=tnpcnewsletter

Read more about PGP at http://www.pgp.com/

I recently found myself discussing and recommending How to Read
A Book by Mortimer Adler. I keep coming back to that book since
it had a such a large impact on my life. In a nutshell the book
shows you how to read a book and extract the meaning inside of
it. Obviously, this doesn’t have to apply only to books. The
techniques work just as well with all forms of communication.

In our “instant information” society many have lost their
ability to discern. News and information is often rated by how
visually appealing the information is rather than the content of
the information itself. The brevity of most news sources makes
it difficult to apply any constructive thought to the topic.

How To Read A Book was recommended to me during my second year
of college. It changed the way I approached my studies and
viewed information. After reading the book I was angry that
nobody had taught me these things in high school. It would have
made a big difference in how I approached learning and even
reading for enjoyment.

This is one of the books I keep in my “give away” pile. Used
copies I pick up and give to friends who can benefit from it.

If your job or hobby involves research or digesting information
you will benefit from reading this book. If you enjoy keeping up
with politics or other subjects that have lots of rhetoric you
will enjoy this book. If you know someone in high school get
them a copy and encourage them to learn the skills. They will
benefit from them the rest of their life.

Read more about this book at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671212095/tnpcnewsletter?tag=tnpcnewsletter