- It's the applications, stupid
- Will a whitelist save personal computing?
- Thousands of Web sites under attack
- To solve the unsolvable problem
- Re-thinking the security of virtual machines
- Security Development Lifecycle trumps code complexity
- Is your Web site FIPS compliant?
- Computer security: Why have least privilege?
- Strategic security: Get a handle on authentication
- Control user installs of software
August 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Book Review Gets Me Down
First Amazon review of my latest book gets me down
You don't get rich writing computer security books. In the end you barely make minimum wage. You a write computer security book because you want to share something about a topic that needs more detailed coverage than a 2000-word magazine article can provide.
After seven books, maybe I shouldn't let my feelings be hurt so easily by a bad review. I've normally have a tough skin, but sometimes the critics do hurt a little bit.
It was that way with the first review posted on Amazon about our (me and Jesper's) latest book, Windows Vista Security: Securing Vista Against Malicious Attack (Wiley). It gave our book only 3-stars (out of 5), and appears to rant more about Windows security than anything else.
I've never gotten an Amazon.com book review score below 4 stars before. Heck, there was only one or two 4-star rankings in all six of my previous books, the rest were 5-stars. That's not to say that all my writing reviews are good. I've been blasted by the best of them over the past decade.
Bad reviews I can handle. What is so disappointing with this latest review, by Edward Ray, is that he seems to hate Windows Vista (he even promotes OS X in the title of his review and in the finishing comments). He goes on and on about hating Vista and Windows security. He only mentions two or three things about the book.
In one of those instances he says, "Scant mention of BitLocker in this book, one of its major shortcomings." I count 12 pages and 13 step-by-step screen shots on it. Yeah, that's scant coverage alright.
Edward Ray goes on to complain how our book is 582 pages long versus some other guy's 2002 XP book which was 416 pages. Apparently, the longer pages mean a more insecure product (despite the fact that Vista has many less patches at this stage than XP did). He also mentions that the IE 7 chapter is 50-pages long. Am I really expected to apologize because we give detailed coverage to a wide range of topics?
I don't mind bad reviews...well, I'm lying, I hate them...but this guy seems to be complaining more about Microsoft and Vista, than the book. I know I'm biased, but I think Chapter 3 is the best coverage of how Windows really works behind the scenes than you'll find in any other book. Any thanks for it? No. Our Vista security book is the only one to cover IIS 7, which is significantly different than IIS 6. Any mention of that? No. It's the only Vista security book to cover wireless security. And it's the only book to say that you don't need all those expensive computer security defenses to protect yourself. Any mention? No, just a rant about how Windows security sucks. How boring.
BTW, Edward Ray, can you explain why your beloved OS X has three times as many vulnerabilities (according to Secunia.com, no friend of Microsoft) this year as compared to Windows Vista? Can you explain why OS X had more vulnerabilities this year and last as compared to XP? Can you explain how when you first start the latest version of OS X that it downloads over a 100 MB of patches? Is it because OS X is so much more secure by default?
Ah, my wife is hitting me on the back of the head telling me to get over it.
Posted by Roger Grimes on August 20, 2007 06:05 AM
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Your wife is correct ... get over it.
I got called a "scribble-a-nothing noogoodnik journalist a-hole" in a review of my Linux book. The guy obsessed on a typo and the fact that it wasn't an installation guide (because it was a book about Linux culture ... but he was very disappointed there wasn't a Red Hat installation guide, all the same.)
In the end, my royalties checks cleared the bank. I'm sure yours will, too.
Posted by: Mike H. at August 20, 2007 08:05 AMGotta go with the wife on this one, get over it. It's just one person's opinion. Albeit the first on Amazon, I'm sure it won't be the only one. Plus, talking about it and responding to the criticisms sounds a little like whining! :)
Posted by: Callum Macdonald at August 21, 2007 04:36 AMMy first book sold around 40 copies in 1 year, out of which I bought 10. A big big flop. I am hopeful that the second one will atleast do 5 times that. :-). You sounded like crying over nothing.
Posted by: Pavi Agrawal at August 24, 2007 12:20 PMIf it cheers you up, I got a bad review from a guy called Rob Slade and didn't agree with a lot of it either. In the meantime, the book has been adopted for several university courses (including Royal Holloway, London) and is currently number 1 on amazon.co.uk under "information security".
The moral is that the market will decide, not the reviewer.
Good look with your book.
Posted by: Steve Purser at October 31, 2007 07:00 AM
