PHP Hacks by Jack D. Herrington
Dec. 2005, O’Reilly Media, Inc.
468 pages, $29.95, paperback
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From generating Flash movies on the fly to adding interactive maps to your Web site, the number of interesting things that can be done with PHP is limited primarily by one’s imagination. To provide some stimulation on that end, Herrington has picked 100 nifty things you can do with PHP and brought them together in PHP Hacks from O’Reilly.

AI Game Development by Alex J. Champandard
October 31, 2003, New Riders.
500 pages, $49.99 US, paperback.
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Instead of dry theory the book tries to show the AI techniques in real applications, which is a great idea.

Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks by Scott Fullam.
November 1, 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
504 pages, $29.95 US, paperback.
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For those of you who never got further than taking apart toys as kids, now you have no excuse not to let loose your inner hardware geek.

PC Annoyances by Steve Bass.
October 14, 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
500 pages, $19.95 US, paperback.
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For those of us who tear our hair out trying to figure out why Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and Outlook Express programs sometimes do those strange things, buy this book and save your hair.

Google Pocket Guide by Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest & DJ Adams.
June 12, 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
129 pages, $9.95 US, paperback.
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While the package is convenient, the delivery of content is also very functional. The writing is non-nonsense, although not humorous, as one finds in the “Dummies” guide series. Gray-scale screen shots supplement the text. The examples do their job.

The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby.
March 5, 2003, New Riders.
384 pages, $39.99 US, paperback.
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There are many Photoshop how-to books, and we finally have one written especially for digital photographers.

Mac OS X Hacks by Rael Dornfest, Kevin Hemenway
March 24, 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
304 pages, $32.75 US, paperback.
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I’ve been impressed with Mac OS X Hacks not only for its utility, which has undoubtedly saved me from premature baldness, but for the entertainment provided by the unabashed geeks-having-fun attitude of the various authors. Even though the hacks are written by many different people, the style of writing is always clear and it never reads like a manual; it’s more like a weblog of interesting Mac OS X snippets organised into sections.

Linux Server Hacks by Rob Flickenger.
January 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
221 pages, $24.95 US, paperback.
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This collection of 100 hacks will help you fine-tune your Linux server and help you get optimal results with minimal effort.

Digital Video Pocket Guide by Derrick Story.
June 30, 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
113 pages, $14.95 US, paperback.
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Digital Video Pocket Guide is the author’s second contribution to the O’Reilly Digital Studio, the first being Digital Photography Pocket Guide,which is now in its second edition. In this book, you get a concise introduction to DV terminology, tips on best practices for your DV workflow, and numerous techniques aimed at getting the most from your DV-shooting experience.

PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition by Rasmus Lerdorf.
November 1, 2002, O’Reilly & Associates.
144 pages, $9.95 US, paperback.
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This book provides a quick reference for how to install PHP, how to use it, and what functions are built into it already. In this respect, it serves as a very concise guide to what you can expect from the language.

Actionscript Cookbook by Joey Lott.
June, 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
552 pages, $49.95 US, paperback.
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The Actionscript Cookbook follows the same format as other O’Reilly cookbooks: solutions to how-to questions.

Outlook Pocket Guide by Walter Glenn.
February 2003, O’Reilly & Associates.
192 pages, $9.95 US, paperback.
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Overall a valuable addition to any Outlook user who wants to be more productive and get quick answers to Outlook questions…without the fluff.

Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman.
May 14, 2003, New Riders.
456 pages, $35.00 US, paperback.
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Overall, Zeldman does a great job of giving a general overview of standards, their pros and cons, and how they can be used to your advantage.

PHP Cookbook by Adam Trachtenberg and David Sklar.
November 21, 2002, O’Reilly & Associates.
624 pages, $39.95 US, paperback.
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Essentially the book can be seen as a collection of sign posts and usable bits of code to get you started when you are looking for a solution to a problem you might spend quite some time looking for elsewhere. Many of the problems selected in the book are ones that you would not find solutions to elsewhere so easily.