Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Thank You O'Reilly!
Just got a fresh load of books to review from O'Reilly & Associates. Ever since esteemed Computer Paper closed down about a year ago in order to make way for the seemingly irrelevant HUB Canada (does anybody bother to check it out other than for the ads?) one of the things I figured I would miss the most was the chance to read and review the latest computer titles. Call me crazy, but after about 10 years of constantly reviewing such titles, I knew I would miss it. It helped keep me in touch with what was going on technically-speaking, and ultimately it helped me to find my own writing niche. Thankfully I was able to get to write for a Vancouver-based computer magazine, but I was afraid this small start-up wasn't going to be big enough to attract much attention from the computer book publishers. But I guess I shouldn't underestimate the fact that I've been writing these reviews for so long, as I have continued to receive support from my old contacts in the biz.

In any event it was great to get a large box filled with titles from O'Reilly today, which was promised to me last week in an email exchange I had with one of their PR reps. Here's what I got:

• Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition, by Eric A. Meyer
• Digital Photography: Expert Techniques, by Ken Milburn
• Linux for Non-Geeks, by Rickford Grant
• Wardriving: A Guide to Wireless Security, by Chris Hurley, Michael Puchol, Russ Rogers, Frank Thornton
• Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham
• Learning Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora, by Bill McCarty
• High Performance MySQL, by Jeremy D. Zawidny & Derek J. Balling
• Excel Hacks, by David & Raina Hawley
• Dancing Barefoot, by Wil Wheaton

The last book, though not strictly speaking a computer book, is at the top of my reading list. I love Wil Wheaton's blog (though I haven't been reading other people's blogs much lately), and am curious to see what he has to say in his book. His tone is a little bit more sentimental than I like to see in a writer, but he does put himself "out there" in his entries.

Am particularly interested in the High Performance MySQL book to see whether or not there is anything there I can use in my PHP/MySQL course at the U. of T., though ultimately I am looking for a book to replace the text I am currently using, which has proven to be a bit clunky at times (especially in the area of missing code samples, which I have had to make up for).

Some people may find it interesting that I got a copy of the latest "Definitive" CSS guide from Eric Meyer, arguably my main "rival" in this field, but I've reviewed his titles before, and I think fairly (and arguably with a deeper knowledge of the field than most other reviewers could bring to bear).

Love getting the books from O'Reilly, and if I only had the choice of getting books from one publisher, it would be from them, so things have worked out nicely. Ultimately I'd love to write for them as well, but that always seems to be another book proposal away.