This will finish the "what do you read this summer" posts.

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson is basically a Bill Gate biography up to about 1993.  It focuses mainly on Bill's interaction with computers in general and then Microsoft specifically, but it also includes not necessarily Microsoft related information about Bill.  I think it is a good source of "how did Microsoft get started" information...if you are looking for that type of info, that is.

The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham and Spencer Meredith is a primer on common financial terms.  If you aren't too familiar with how financial statements work or what their line items mean, this book is a good place to start.

Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies was quite the conversation piece last year when it was released.  It is a first person account of the counter-terrorism efforts of the United States government over the last 20 years or so.  As Clarke says himself in the book, it is written form his perspective, but that aside, it provides a glimpse of where we stand and how we got to where we are.  If Clarke's account of Clinton's efforts are to be believed, it also gave me a bit of respect for him.

The Supreme Court by William Rehnquist is a detailed history of the United States Supreme Court up to the (almost) present day.  Like All the Laws but One, it is written for those without a background in the law.  It explains the history, the purpose, and the day-to-day operations of the Supreme Court.  It was a very interesting read and I am saddened that he is no longer around to write similar books in the future.

Apple Confidential 2.0 by Owen Linzmayer is a history of Apple from its founding to about 2003.  For the most part I found it very informative, though two things stood out as annoying.  First is the style of the book.  Rather than taking a time line approach, the author takes a topical approach and then does that topic chronologically.  This makes the book a bit disjointed.  For instance, if you have never heard of "Copland" (and I hadn't), you have to wait till near the end of the book to understand how it fits in the time line.  The other thing is that, though the author is critical of Apple general and Steve Jobs specifically, he often makes incorrect claims about market share, product performance, and the like.  It's not annoying Apple fan boy literature, but it isn't exactly unbiased either.  Then again, it's hard to find a book on either Apple or Microsoft that feels unbiased.

It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America by Christine Whitman was of interest to me, because she was the governor of New Jersey when I lived there.  The book describes Whitman's opinion on what it means to be a Republican, where the party stands right now, and where it needs to go.  It was an interesting read, though I think her logic is flawed in many cases.  One major instance of this is brushing aside issues such as gay marriage and abortion as though her position is the only logical and acceptable one.  If such things were so obvious, the issues wouldn't be hotly debated as they are.  That aside, it is an first person account of roughly the last 50 years of Republican politics.

For the last little while, I've intended to review the books I've read lately.  Of course, I was so involved with reading the next book that I never quite got around to it...until now.

The first book on my list is Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card.  I made the mistake of reading Ender's Shadow a few years ago, which resulted in my getting hooked.  I subsequently read Ender's Game, Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow Puppets.  The long awaited Shadow of the Giant is the final book (I hope!) in the Shadow series.  It was quite the page turner for me.  The scenarios are a little contrived (as they are in the other books), but plot is more engaging.  If you've read the others, I'd certainly recommend reading this to round out the series.

Next up is The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh.  Hersh has become a favored author of mine, which is a bit odd.  He writes, presently, for the New Yorker to which I once subscribed.  When I was a subscriber, however, I hardly read it.  Hmm.  Anyway, this is written in sort of a "tell all" biography of John F. Kennedy.  I got the impression after reading Chain of Command that Hersh was anti-Republican.  I think now that he is simply a blunt muck-raker and will point out flaws he finds in either party.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins is somewhat of an odd choice for me.  I read it, because it appeared to be a book about an insiders' view on world economic trends.  It turned out to be a not-too-thrilling auto-biography.  Perhaps I'm a victim of the economic machine that Perkins describes, so his book is lost on me.  At any rate, it wasn't too inspiring.

The late William Rehnquist's All the Laws but One is a history of US civil rights in war time.  Rehnquist takes a balanced look at the needs of the government to protect the people in time of war and at the rights of the people that government is there to protected.  It is a scholarly work but one that is suited for a common, non-lawyer audience.

Antonin Scalia's A Matter of Interpretation, however, is a work that is likely more suited for lawyers.  While much of it made sense to me, I can't help but think I missed some points due to my lack of background in the law.  The format of the book is Scalia's view on how the laws should be interpreted, followed by response by four others, followed by Scalia's counter-response.  I make note of this, because I expected this was a single author text when I got it.

J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was better than its predecessor Order of the Phoenix but still left a bit to be desired.  The plot felt contrived just as it did in Order of the Phoenix.  For instance, I couldn't help but think that Harry and Dumbledore didn't meet too often, because it would have threatened the plot flow.  In reality, however, I think they would have met together more frequently, shared more information, and accomplished much more.  This is fiction, however, so it is still a must read for those who have trudged through the first five books.

Rich Dad's Prophecy by Robert Kiyosaki is a book I picked up at an airport on a return flight from North Carolina last year.  Shortly after returning home, it settled on my bookshelf and began collecting dust.  Like other books in the Rich Dad series, it is a guide to money management.  It warns of an impending stock market crash as a result of mandatory stock sales in ERISA-based retirement accounts in the coming years as baby boomers hit retirement age.  The goal of the books isn't doom and gloom but rather awareness and preparedness.  I'm not sure that I subscribe to Robert's logic, but I recognize he's richer than I am by a long shot and is worth listening to.

Whenever I setup a new XP Pro box, I always forget to change this setting. I also quite often forget how to change this setting. This is a reminder - to change the max connections that IIS on XP Pro can accept do the following:

If you have a default install of IIS, then execute the following from the command line:

cscript c:\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs set w3svc/MaxConnections 40

Running iisreset afterward will restart IIS with the new setting.