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Readings Enjoyed By Windows Assistance

The collection of books on this page are recommended as a diversion, enlightenment, enjoyment, etc. Nothing on this page is related directly to Microsoft Windows OSs. Remember all knowledge is additive. The more you read the more you know.

Windows Assistance has read all the books on this page. I only state this because I will not put a book on this page unless I have read it and think someone else will benefit from reading the book.

note: The links will take you to Amazon. Yes if you purchase the book at Amazon then I benefit. But only if you jump to the book from here. Every little bit helps. And remember you can always go to the library and check out the books. The library? You know, that offline repository of information and knowledge. Enjoy.

High St@kes, No Prisoners

A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars

by Charles H. Ferguson 1999
Random House
ISBN: 0-8129-3143-2

Charles H. Ferguson is the founder of Vermeer Technologies, creator of Microsoft FrontPage. This is the story of the birth of the Web and one company's effort to develop some sort of software product and the two companies, Netscape and Microsoft, that went to war over dominance of the Internet. Only problem was that one company, Netscape, didn't know it was at war. You'll never look at Netscape as the hero that was rolled over by the evil empire from the North again.

Barbarians Led by Bill Gates

Microsoft from the Inside

by Jennifer Edstrom, Marlin Eller 1998
Henry Holt & Company, Inc.
ISBN: 0805057544

Think Microsoft and Bill Gates planed everything in advance when they went after a market? Think again. The best section of the book is centered around three of the interesting events in the history of Microsoft - the very unplanned success of Windows 3.X, the big time failure of Penpoint OS, and the compromised design and slow success of Windows 95.

Cuckoo's Egg

Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

by Clifford Stoll
Pocket Books
ISBN: 0743411463

Clifford Stoll becomes, almost unwillingly, a one-man security force trying to track down faceless criminals who've invaded the university computer lab he stewards. What first appears as a 75-cent accounting error in a computer log is eventually revealed to be a ring of industrial espionage, primarily thanks to Stoll's persistence and intellectual tenacity.

The Dream Machines

J. C. R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal

by M. Mitchell Waldrop
Viking
ISBN: 0-670-89976-3

Spans the history of modern computers from the Second World War to the explosive breakthroughs at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, the personal computer boom of the 1980s, and the unparalleled success of the Internet in the 1990s. 

Where engines of the Mind concentrates on the hardware, The Dream Machines follows the development of the software technology from automated radar to the Internet.

Engines of the Mind

The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microcomputers

by Joel N. Surkin 1984 
W. W. Norton & Company, New York 
ISBN: 0-393-31471-5

Details the history of the computer from early time to the 1990s. Author concentrates on the research and development of the computer hardware from the late 1930s to the early 1960s. 

The Media Lab

Inventing The Future At M.I.T.

by Stewart Brand 1987 
Penguin Books 
ISBN: 0-14-00.9701-5

MIT's Media Lab is one of the most influential centers of media research. Find out how it started and grew.

Mindstorms

Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas

by Seymour Papert 1980 
Basic Books, Inc. 
ISBN: 0-465-04627-4

How do we learn? What is Lego? Learn about Lego and how it effects a child's learning.

Pattern on the Stone

Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work

by W. Daniel Hillis 1999
Perseus Books
ISBN: 046502596X

Mr. Hillis has distilled his accumulated knowledge of computer science into The Pattern on the Stone, the book reveals the nature of logical machines simply and elegantly.

Flatland

A Romance of Many Dimensions

by Edwin A. Abbott 
Barnes & Noble Books 
ISBN: 0-06-463573-2

An introduction into the manner of perceiving dimensions.

The Elements of Style

Third Edition 
by William Struck Jr. and E. B. White 1979 
MacMillian Publishing Co., Inc. 
ISBN: 0-02418200-1

All could benefit from this little gem of a book. It will not necessarily make you a better writer but it just might.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

An Inquiry Into Values

by Robert M. Pirsig 1974 
Bantam Books 
ISBN: 553-08880-225

What is quality? A whole book about that one question. Software designers should have this as required reading. Better yet, they should have a class on just this one book.

Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?

by Andrei Amaalrik 1970 
Harper & Row, Publishers 
LOC: 76-105222

I'm here to tell you that it wasn't Ronald Reagan that brought down the big bad bear. This book was published in 1970 and got it pretty close. Read what this author considers the reasons for the Soviet Union's downfall.

How Buildings Learn

What happens after they are built

by Stewart Brand 1994
Penguin Books
ISBN: 0-14-013996-6

Learn how we use structures and ways in which they change and grow. Much of what is discussed about buildings can be applied to software.

Inventing The Internet

by Janet Abbate 2000
MIT Press
ISBN: 0-26251115-0

The social history of the Internet. Did ARPANet really get started because the military needed a bomb proof method of communication or was there another reason?