Wicked Cool Shell Scripts

The exact title is "Wicked Cool Shell Scripts, 101 scripts of Linux, OS X and UNIX systems, 2nd Edition" by Dave Taylor and Brandon Perry from No Starch Press.

It's been a while since the first version of the book came out (2004) and a lot has changed in the world of UNIX since that time so though many of the ideas from the first version are still valid, it has been updated to take into account systems like macOS and even Windows.

The book is broken into the following sections

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 0: A Shell Scripts Crash Course
• Chapter 1: The Missing Code Library
• Chapter 2: Improving on User Commands
• Chapter 3: Creating Utilities
• Chapter 4: Tweaking Unix
• Chapter 5: System Administration: Managing Users
• Chapter 6: System Administration: System Maintenance
• Chapter 7: Web and Internet Users
• Chapter 8: Webmaster Hacks
• Chapter 9: Web and Internet Administration
• Chapter 10: Internet Server Administration
• Chapter 11: OS X Scripts
• Chapter 12: Shell Script Fun and Games
• Chapter 13: Working with the Cloud
• Chapter 14: ImageMagick and Working with Graphics Files
• Chapter 15: Days and Dates
• Appendix A: Installing Bash on Windows 10
• Appendix B: Bonus Scripts
• Index

It's a long book at 305 pages, and it's probably more of a reference book for ideas on shell scripting and what you can do rather than reading it from start to finish - though if you're new to the subject, it's probably worth reading Chapter 0 before moving to other chapters.

If you want to get more out of using the command line (on pretty much any UNIX like OS) this could be the book for you.

It's available for purchase direct from No Starch Press for $34.95 Print Book and FREE Ebook or $27.95 Ebook (PDF, Mobi, and ePub), slightly more through O'Reilly (but you can get it through their Safari service) and considerably cheaper through Amazon.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III - The Guide to Understanding and Using Your Camera

This post should have been published a LONG time ago.

O'Reilly are known for their computing books, but they also do technology on other subjects through Rocky Nook. Here's a review on the Canon EOS 5D Mark III - The Guide to Understanding and Using Your Camera from Paul Clark (a professional photographer).

Having worked through the EOS range from 40D, 50D, 5D2 and now to the 5D3, this book has unlocked many things I thought I already knew about Canon digital cameras, even before we get to the new features of the 5D3. It's usefully laid out - in part, going through each menu feature much like the manual does, but adding a lot of When and Why to the How of the manual's basic descriptions. For the first time I really understood what the stopping down preview was all about, and some of the Live View functions. As well as the feature dissection, the book also goes into great detail on some of the really complicated areas that benefit from a chapter to themselves. Focus, and in particular the 5D3's sophisticated autofocus settings are really well explained. I suspect that the actual range of functions is so vast and complex to set up that in the field one would hardly ever have time to do more than a couple of familiar settings, but it's nice to know what's on offer anyway.

The illustrations are clear and plentiful, and the text very readable. I'm a big fan of the style, but if I could pick out one area for improvement it would be a stronger steer towards "what really works" for different shooting scenarios - e.g. which of the many options on focus point selection might work best for a particular settings, or what three custom settings should be the shooter's priority when preparing. There are a few of these "opinions and tips", such as whether the Rate button really offers any value, but there's always room for more in a book like this.

Overall: excellent.

Next time publishing will be in a more timely manner.

Geek? Get some cheap ebooks

There's a deal on at the moment at Hummbebundle, you can pay what you want (starting at $1), but paying more unlocks more books.

The basic bundle contains: -

• Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition
• sed & awk, 2nd Edition
• lex and yacc, 2nd Edition
• Learning the bash Shell, 3rd Edition
• Linux Pocket Guide, 3rd Edition

Increasing to $8 gets you: -

• bash Cookbook
• Classic Steel Scripting
• Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition
• Unix Power Tools
• Learning the vi and Vim Editors, 7th Edition
• Bash Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
• Learning Unix for OS X, 2nd Edition

And then for $15 you further get: -

• Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition
• TCP/IP Network Administration, 3rd Edition
• DNS and BIND, 5th Edition
• Network Troubleshooting Tools

The are all O'Reilly books, DRM free and come as Mobi and ePub.

Useful arsenal of tools and for $15, a real bargain.