Jonathon Posted March 27, 2011 Share Posted March 27, 2011 Came across this today. MySQL Hacked 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HartleySan Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Wow! Quite shockingly, although not completely unbelieveable. Naturally, given Larry's books and my trend towards good, free stuff in general, I've always been a MySQL guy. Wow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathon Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 Yeah I know. Although its bad publicity, I'm not sure how many would jump ship so to speak. But saying that you'd feel different if it was sure site that got hacked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Yeah, that's interesting. From what I've read, the problem wasn't in the MySQL database but in the site design. In other words, it was probably poor coding. It just takes one mistake and a large group of people trying to break the site... A wonderful alternative to MySQL is PostgreSQL, it just doesn't have the PR. I tried to get Peachpit to do a PostgreSQL book years ago. It had feature then that MySQL just recently added. There are also interesting offshoots from MySQL to watch, such as MariaDB. Basically the key creators of MySQL have left Oracle (if they were ever there) and are trying to create their own fork of MySQL that better adheres to their vision. But the fact of the matter is we're all going to continue using MySQL until there's a really convincing reason not to! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathon Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 Yeah I agree. I love MySQL but I have seen people who use other databases and thought, maybe I should get acquainted with a 'backup' or alternative. Maybe you could self-publish a PostgreSQL book. (If you get a chance) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Excellent idea, Jonathon! If this self-publishing thing works out, I guess there are a lot of books that I could do now that I've thought about doing over the years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathon Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 Yeah, I'll definately be purchasing the JS book, so I hope it does work out for you and it opens up the possiblities of being able to write whatever you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Big thanks, Jonathon! I should get around to writing that alleged JS book. Out of curiosity, what format do you think you'd prefer it in? Printed, PDF, mobi (Kindle), ePub? I'm going to make it available in as many ways as possible, but would like to know. I'm even thinking about turning it into an app (both iOS and Android), down the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathon Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 Haha, "Good things come to those who wait"! So i'm told anyway. Format wise, thats a toughy! For me I love having a printed version, So I can scribble my notes down as I go through. But I would imagine the cost of that format would be a lot more than other formats. You can't really go wrong with a PDF i'd say, for both the consumer and the manurfacturer. Because everyones got a device that can utilise a PDF readily (Mac/PC/iPad..etc) and they can then print this if they wanted too. I havent used a kindle or ePub though i'm sure theyr'e both excellent products. But i'm unsure of the costs involved with any of these formats. I just imagine PDF would be the more universal platform. What are your thoughts? I'm sure the apps would go down very well indeed too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 Thanks for the input! I've only barely looked into this, but clearly the printed book will have the biggest expense on my end, but I am dedicated to selling printed versions. I can generate PDF, epub, and mobi formats at no cost, really. The issue, then, is where the item sells from. If it sells from Amazon, they take a percentage of the price, like maybe 55%. I don't know what rights I'll have to sell things through my own site at a different price than Amazon. I have an amount in mind that I'd like to personally get per book (after expenses) and I have a maximum in mind that I'd feel comfortable with people spending (probably $15-$25, depending upon the format). So it's going to be a matter of striking the right balance between those two numbers. My (former) agent actually mentioned the apps idea to me, which I wouldn't have otherwise considered. But it would allow me to, I think, put demonstrable JavaScript with the book. In other words, you're reading the book, here's a bit of code, click this button to see the results in action. It's a whole bigger level of effort and knowledge involved (on my part), but it could be an excellent use of the app technology and a good way to set the book apart from others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathon Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 Yes i'd agree, it would really be an interactive way to learn, which would appeal to many! I'm sure Amazon does provide a massive market for possible buyers. But, with the kind of figures you told me you were receiveing through your site each month, you've got a very keen audience here. But if I want a book/kindle(if I had one), i'd go Amazon and I suppose most others would too, I suspect many like me, have bought a book of yours and then looked at other books of yours they could buy to increase their knowledge. On the other hand, I'm sure you put a lot of money through Amazon, so maybe you could negotiate a better deal?!(Then write a book about "tackling Amazon" ) Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here but, (bear with me, because it ultimately means more work for you)! if you were to make an app for the JS book. Perhaps you could document your experiences and make that into another self-published book. I can only see the app market going up and up currently, and everyone wants to cash in on it. So at this time it could be quite the investment. But I imagine it would cost you a LOT of time (one would imagine). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 I've taken on a series of iOS projects for my business over the last 6 months - I'm not hugely experienced yet (3 apps currently all in the final testing stage) but it looks like this is what I'll be spending the majority of my time on for the foreseeable future so if you wanted to run any ideas or questions by me regarding iOS capabilities/features or ideas for the app feel free - always happy to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Jonathon, I think I have a decent-sized "following", but to put that in perspective, if everyone currently subscribed to my newsletter and currently registered in this forum buys a copy of a self-published book, I'll basically make just about the bare minimum I would be guaranteed to make if I went with a publisher. And, of course, not everyone is going to buy a copy. On the other hand, if I sell as many copies of a self-published book as I have some of my best selling traditional books, I'll make a small fortune. Okay, not a small fortune, but it'd be quite beneficial. So I'm trying to approach this with open eyes. I am dedicating the bulk of this year to making this happen (and learning what I need to learn), so I'll make the time and am prepared to not make much money this year on that account. Better to have tried and failed...though. At the end of the year I'll have tried something new, learned a whole lot, and made somewhere between not that much money and a decent amount. In the grand scheme of things, that's a good year. And, yes, a self-published book on apps or whatever would make sense. Basically I don't learn anything these days without writing a book about it! Stuart, thanks for the input and for volunteering. Much appreciated. Will keep that in mind. In learning several languages and technologies over the past 12 years--PHP, MySQL, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, OOP, C, C++, Ruby, Flex, what I've figured out is this: what's really important is learning how to learn, understanding approaches to common problems, and knowing how to debug. Although there are cultural differences between, say, PHP and Ruby, at the end of the day, the biggest difference is just syntax. Once you understand UI and form validation and data storage, etc., it's largely a matter of capitalization and balancing parentheses and semicolons (or not) and such. So I'm not worried about tackling iOS when the time comes. Certainly, there's that last 20% of a technology, the mastery of which differentiates the capable programmer from the extraordinary one, but 80% of lots of programming languages are really common ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HartleySan Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Larry, you are absolutely right about there being a common ground among programming languages, and to some degree, once you've learned one of them, you've learned them all. Nevertheless, the average non-technical manager doesn't understand that, and will look for people with knowledge of a specific system/language, which is why it's important to have studied them all, I think. Anyway, back on the topic of your JS book. I'll be honest, I couldn't wait, so I went out and purchased O'Reilly's 900-page behemoth of a JS book. It's definitely a good book, but it's more a reference book than one you sit down and read cover to cover (which I actually did for whatever reason). One thing I think that's important to touch on with a JS book in the near future is the advent of JS 2.0, and the OOP paradigm. As it stands, the O'Reilly book covers the current version of JS (1.5/1.6), and talks about pseudo-classes (i.e., prototyping, etc.), but even that book acknowledges that everything will change as of 2.0. Anyway, I'll still buy your JS book, if you ever bring it out. On another note, I read a story the other day about a first-time Web dev book writer who wanted to get his name out there, so he had a printed copy of his book on Amazon, which sold for about $20, and then he had a free, PDF copy on Amazon. He found that for every 400-or-so customers that downloaded his free PDF version, one would buy his printed edition. He still made some decent money from it though, and you gotta figure that you're in a much better position than he is. I mean, let's put it this way, type "PHP" into Amazon, and see who has the top-rated book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 No worries Larry - and just to be clear I wasn't talking in terms of technical question - if I can get to grips with it in 3 months with no OOP knowledge then I'm sure it'll be a breeze for you. I just mean in terms of app/feature planning and UI design etc... Also is the JS book coming before the Yii book? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 HartleySan, when people talk about self-publishing, they think about the amount of control and higher profits, but I honestly don't think it's feasible without already having some "base" or "following", be that Twitter or a blog or existing books. Ironically, by having already published 20 books (and the other promotional stuff I do), a self-published book of mine is much more likely to be successful today than one I could have written 5 years ago. I have that same O'Reilly book, although I bought mine about 10 years ago, so it's really outdated. Like pretty much all O'Reilly books, it's an excellent and exhaustive resource but not necessarily the best book to learn from. Thanks for your thoughts about JavaScript 2.0. I'm thinking of a way to make the purchase of a book qualify a person for free updates for life (or five years or something). That way, rather than trying to shoehorn discussion as to what JavaScript 2.0 will be into this book, I can just update the book when JavaScript 2.0 comes out. Of course, I can't provide free updates of printed books and maybe not those sold through Amazon so... Stuart, yes, I'm doing the JavaScript book first, then one on Yii (assuming the whole thing hasn't blown up in my face by then and I've decided to scrap the idea). From a business perspective, it'd probably be better to do the Yii book first, but I've been promising the JavaScript book for a long time and people want it. Plus, I already had the book outlined. Thanks everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josee Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I'm also very much looking forward to your JS book, and my preferred format would undoubtedly be PDF. I like to "scribble" on books too, but nowadays, and for computer-linked subjects, I much prefer to scribble on a PDF version! This way, when I want to change one of my annotations or delete it, the copy remains clean-looking. Also, typing is much, much more readable than my handwriting. I can add as many bookmarks or links to other files/pages as I wish, copy/paste snippets from the text, use the "search" menu, and I very much like having the list of contents easily accessible (also as bookmarks). As I have quite a large screen (24"), the PDF version also allows having both the book and a text editor window side by side, which makes it easy alternately to read and type code, and test it in the browser. The last thing is that with a PDF it can be easy for the author to allow buyers to download updated or corrected versions of the book whenever they like (or, even better, only corrected pages, so that they can replace the faulty ones without having to drop the whole original version, with all its personal annotations and bookmarks). O'Reilly commercial politics are great for that: whenever you buy a PDF book from them, you can download updated versions with no further charge. On the other hand, I hate Peachpit's politics (sorry, Larry!), because the only way you can read their PDFs is in Adobe Digital Editions, which may look fine on screen but is really much less user-friendly than Adobe Acrobat Professional. Adobe Digital Editions is the kind of software that was created to protect the publisher, not to make it easy to read PDFs on your computer! For all these reasons, I'm not sure I would be interested in an app. Demonstrable JavaScript can make things easy for the reader now and then, but I know that if I don't type code and test it just by myself, I won't memorise anything; so demonstrable JavaScript would not make me buy an app! In fact, I think what I would really like is a PDF version with a lay-out optimized for the screen. So that you can easily have one whole page on screen, even if you like using a 125% zoom. Also optimized in the sense that the author includes links to websites with content complementing his explanations, for instance. I think there's a lot an author or publisher can do to sell screen versions of their books that are much more convenient and user-friendly than printed versions, especially for all computer-linked subjects. But, for that, PDFs can't be just a screen output of a printed version. They will usually be much better if they have been conceived right from the start for use on a computer. Sorry to have been so lengthy! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Thanks for your input, Josee. Yes, I've heard complaints about the Adobe Digital Editions before. It wasn't something I was familiar with. I've requested that Peachpit remove all DRM from all of my books, too. What you say about PDFs makes sense. One great thing about doing this myself is I should be able to output the content in any format I want. I'll need to create a PDF for the print version of the book, but there's no reason I can't output a different kind of PDF for the screen. I'll just need to figure out what that means... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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