Blog books

As more and more bloggers write about books and with some of their Web sites receiving thousands of hits a day, this is an easy-to-follow guide to the top, book-related blogs.

With the current craze for blogs, the phenomenon of book blogging is of interest from an objective standpoint as well as to those keen to read book reviews. How much influence do these bloggers have? Is there any kind of censorship or quality control? Are booksellers aware of them? Does Oprah Winfrey take note?

Many people develop a real fondness for book bloggers who write reviews for love and not money. Taking in small, quirky Web sites like Book Slut, dovegreyreader, Bluestalking Reader, and MoorishGirl as well as large, well-known sites like salon.com, this book will show readers how to investigate literature from distant lands, to find the sites of authors who are yet to be discovered by the mainstream, and to find the pages of book industry pundits who have opened their daily lives to a wider world. Welcome to the honest world of book blogs.

Catheryn Kilgarriff and Rebecca Gillieron are editors at Marion Boyars Publishers, and Meryl Zegarek is a book publicist of many years standing. All three have seen the book industry from the inside and are happy that blogs are now opening this world up to ordinary readers.

Marcus doesn’t want to turn into a half-vampire—but he is even more horrified at receiving his first blood craving at school in this hilarious tale of a not-so-normal teen

Marcus was convinced that vampires don't exist—he was very wrong. On the night of his 13th birthday, he is faced with a bombshell when his parents tell him that he is actually half-vampire and is about to go through his vampire changeover period. As Marcus secretly blogs about the horrors of his new fangs, bad breath, and cravings for blood, he is unaware that his life is in serious danger.

With an exclusive look inside Google, Disney, Yahoo, IBM, and others, this book shows how your company can use blogs to raise its visibility and transform internal communications

All companies, large and small, know that reaching customers directly and influencing--and being influenced by--them is essential to success. Blog Marketing

shows marketing and PR professionals as well small business owners how to do just that without spending a lot of money. Readers will learn how to tap into the power of blogs to create a direct line of communication with customers, raise the company's visibility, and position their organizations as industry thought leaders.

"Blogs will soon become a staple in the information diet of every serious businessperson . . . . Blogs offer an accelerated and efficient approach to acquiring and understanding the kind of information all of us need to make business decisions."

-- John Battelle, Business 2.0

Photos exist to be shared
Whether you seek to showcase a professional portfolio or just want your family across the continent to see the pictures from the reunion, you can do it with a photo blog. Catherine Jamieson, whose award-winning blog, Utata, has a legion of fans, gives you all the tools you need in this richly illustrated, full-color guide. She translates Web lingo, walks you through setting up your blog, and provides professional tips on composing, shooting, and editing your photos. Jamieson even helps jumpstart your creativity with 100 photo ideas to get you shooting.
Catherine gets you started blogging in Movable Type
Covers the tools you need to get up and running
* Understand your style and decide on the purpose of your photo blog
* Evaluate Web hosting options
* Design your blog using the Movable Type publishing platform and professionally created, customizable templates
* Learn to shoot, edit, and select photos that work best on the Web
* Create a site to publish projects for your group or organization
* Promote your blog, network with other photo bloggers, and syndicate content
* Improve your photographic skills with professional tricks and techniques, whether you take pictures for a living or just for fun
* Explore and learn from some of the Web's top-rated photo blogs
Check out the free templates and additional resource materials at www.wiley.com/go/photoblog

There are many bits and pieces of folklore in mathematics that are passed down from advisor to student, or from collaborator to collaborator, but which are too fuzzy and non-rigorous to be discussed in the formal literature. Traditionally, it was a matter of luck and location as to who learned such folklore mathematics. But today, such bits and pieces can be communicated effectively and efficiently via the semiformal medium of research blogging. This book grew from such a blog.In 2007, Terry Tao began a mathematical blog, as an outgrowth of his own website at UCLA. This book is based on a selection of articles from the first year of that blog. These articles discuss a wide range of mathematics and its applications, ranging from expository articles on quantum mechanics, Einstein's equation E = mc2, or compressed sensing, to open problems in analysis, combinatorics, geometry, number theory, and algebra, to lecture series on random matrices, Fourier analysis, or the dichotomy between structure and randomness that is present in many subfields of mathematics, to more philosophical discussions on such topics as the interplay between finitary and infinitary in analysis.Some selected commentary from readers of the blog has also been included at the end of each article. While the articles vary widely in subject matter and level, they should be broadly accessible to readers with a general graduate mathematics background; the focus in many articles is on the 'big picture' and on informal discussion, with technical details largely being left to the referenced literature.

Finally a book for anyone who has ever thought about starting a Weblog but wasn't sure how to post, where to find links, or even where to go to register. The Weblog Handbook is a clear and concise guide to everything one needs to know about the phenomenon that is exploding on the Web. Rebecca Blood expertly guides the reader through the whole process of starting and maintaining a Weblog and answers any questions that might pop up along the way, such as the elements of good Weblog design and how to find free hosting.

Gen's family is more comfortable spending time apart than together. Then Gen's mom signs them up for Camp Frontier—a vacation that promises the "thrill" of living like 1890s pioneers. Forced to give up all of her modern possessions, Gen nevertheless manages to email her friends back home about life at "Little Hell on the Prairie," as she's renamed the camp. It turns out frontier life isn't without its good points—like the cute boy who lives in the next clearing. And when her friends turn her emails into a blog, Gen is happily surprised by the fanbase that springs up. But just when it seems Gen and family might pull through the summer, disaster strikes as a TV crew descends on the camp, intent on discovering the girl behind the nationwide blogging sensation—and perhaps ruining the best vacation Gen has ever had.

Blogs and Wikis have not been with us for long, but have made a huge impact on society. Wikipedia is the best known exemplar of the wiki, a collaborative site that leads to a single text claimed by no-one; blogs, or web-logs, have exploded into the mainstream through novelisations, film adaptations and have gathered huge followings. Blogs and wikis also serve to provide a coherent basis for a discourse analysis of specific web language.
What makes these forms distinctive as genres, and what ramifications does the technology have on the language? Myers looks at how blogs and wikis:
*allow for easier than ever publication
*can claim to challenge institutional hierarchies
*provide alternate perspectives on events
*exemplify globalization
*challenge demarcations between the personal and the public
*construct new communities and more Drawing on a wide range of popular blogs and wikis, the book works alongside an author blog that contains regularly updated links, references and a glossary. An essential textbook for upper level undergraduates on linguistics and language studies courses, it elucidates, informs and offers insights into a major new type of discourse. This coursebook will include a companion website.

For both internet gurus and online novices, this handy mini-encyclopedia explores the useful and interesting sites—big and small, popular and obscure—that make up Web 2.0, the new online community. From YouTube and Flickr to eBay and Facebook, each website and online application is explained through step-by-step screen shots and examines what each site does, why people use it, how to get started, and any special features. Simple yet thorough definitions for commonly used internet elements—such as tags, bookmarks, blogs, and podcasts—are provided as well as little-known usage tips for expert surfers. Grouped by type, this detailed guide also offers dozens of alternative URLs that cover similar online territory, but with their own unique takes.

A complete guide to every aspect of creating a variety of different websites using Drupal.¿ A trove of well-considered and practical information is presented in a logical and intuitive manner so that you can either build up your site step by step by reading from cover to cover or, alternatively, focus on your specific needs by diving into each chapter as required. This book will suit anyone who has a need to create a content rich website. Whether you are: Adding a personal web page. Building a forum. Writing a collaborative book. Retailing goods. Creating a blog. Launching a community Website. This book will prove to be an indispensable companion. Both experts and beginners to computing alike will find the information contained herein to be accessible and easy to intuit.