Hi all,
Just wanted to bring this site to your attention as I subscribed last night and already love it.
http://safari.oreilly.com
You pay a monthly fee (I picked the cheapest package at $9.99/month)
and it gives you access to thousands of books from all of the major
publishers (O'Reilly, Sams, Microsoft Press, etc) via their web site.
The way it works is that you can add books onto your "bookshelf" and
then read the whole things, from cover to cover, on-line. It includes a very good search system, all of the diagrams that were in the book, everything.
The only "drawback" is that once you have picked a book, it has to
stay on your bookshelf for 30 days. The starter package lets you have 5 books at any one time, the advanced package lets you have more + you can even download the chapters.
I really wanted a bunch of CSS and XML books, but at £25 to £35 each I couldn't afford them all, but for around £7 a month I now have them all sat on my "bookshelf" and can read/search them as needed
It's excellent - lots of C++ books (etc) there, as well as AI,
Business books, Hardware, Graphics related, etc.
If you have a really good technical local library (college, etc) then this isn't a very cost effective replacement
but if you don't, it could save you loads. I can now get to read 60 books a year for £84 rather than the £1500 it would cost me to buy them all. IT related books loose value so quickly, it makes sense to me anyway.
Cheers,
Rich
With our species on the edge of extermination,
with no prospect but a horrible death,
we actually played games.
