Software Diagnostics Library

I thought I discovered the concept “Books as Software” but Google search reveals that it was done before me by Shriram Krishnamurthi:

http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Memos/Books-as-Software/

It’s good to see that I wasn’t alone to notice this concept after publishing my first book on Lulu. However I went further and registered as a publisher and now use Lightning Source for long term publishing through Ingram and online bookstores like Amazon. Lulu now serves the purpose of a bookstore, instant publishing to test concepts, and also to publish in formats that are not available through Lightning Source.

Moving forward and thinking about multiple books brings us to consider book series as software product lines as well. We also need some kind of a management process that I call Iterative and Incremental Publishing taken from the family of scalable Unified Processes like Rational that I am used to. Scaled down to just one book it can be called Iterative and Incremental Writing as well. I was thinking about during past two months and finally came up with an idea to release a short book in October to help others to spring into technical self-publishing and writing especially software engineers. Iterative and Incremental Writing techniques can also be applied to traditional publishing as well where you already have an accepted book proposal similar to vision and requirements documentation and perhaps you have a draft chapter and table of contents that can be considered as a working software prototype.

The forthcoming book has the following draft product details:

• Title: Technical Books As Software: Iterative and Incremental Writing and Publishing
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: Opentask (15 October 2008)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-03-2
• Paperback: 128 pages

I think there is a big difference between technical and other book genres like fiction so I decided to limit myself to technical book writing and publishing although some concepts of iterative and incremental development can be applied to other book categories as well where a process needs to be established to achieve the writing and publishing goals.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

This is a must have book for system administrators of complex Windows server platforms and client workstations to understand and choose the best course of action to address system and application crashes, hangs, CPU spikes and memory leaks. It is also invaluable to general Windows users and technical support engineers.

• Title: Crash Dump Analysis for System Administrators and Support Engineers
• Authors: Thomas Monahan, Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: Opentask (30 November 2009)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-02-5
• Paperback: 180 pages

 - Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

OpenTask, the publisher of Crash Dump Analysis books, joins PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Finally, thanks to agreement with Lightning Source, the paperback edition is available on Amazon where you can purchase it too:

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1

Hardcover edition will be available there in a few weeks.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I have created Book Errata page at this address:

http://www.dumpanalysis.org/MDAA-Volume1-Errata

The link to it has been also added to the main book ad page:

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

This is the next scheduled book from Crash Dump Analysis Publishing Roadmap:

• Title: Windows® Debugging Notebook: Essential Concepts, WinDbg Commands and Tools
• Authors: Roberto Alexis Farah, Dmitry Vostokov
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24

• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-00-1
• Publisher: Opentask (1 December 2009)
• Paperback: 256 pages

• ISBN-13: 978-0-9558328-5-7
• Publisher: Opentask (1 February 2010)
• Hardcover (Cloth): 256 pages

Draft Table of Contents will be published next month together with a sample chapter.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Due to demand from people that prefer ebooks I published Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1 in a digital format that can be purchased in Crash Dump Analysis Store. This format has color pictures inside.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I’ve made available Search Inside for MDAA V1 book on Amazon:

Amazon Search Inside

It is still not available for purchase there but will be in a few weeks because I use a different POD company for WW distribution and I made my submission too late. In the mean time you can buy it directly from Dump Analysis Store. Google Book Search will also be available soon too.

Note: The book is shown as color book inside but it is B/W in printed form. I apologize for any confusion that might have arisen from this fact. I’m working on a digital version and it will have color pictures inside.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I’m very proud to announce that it is finally available in both paperback and hardback. Why have I made available both editions? Because I personally prefer hardcover books. You can order the book today and it will be printed in 3-5 days (paperback) or 5-10 days (hardcover) and sent to you:

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1

Note: although listed on Amazon and other online bookstores it is not immediately available at these stores at the moment due to the late submission. I apologize for this. However, I expect that in a few weeks pre-orders taken there will be eventually fulfilled. In the mean time, if you want the book now, you can use the link above.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

To avoid controversial pictures I decided to put an image of TestDefaultDebugger crash dump generated by Dump2Picture:

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Some people commented that by placing an image of a complete memory dump on the back cover of a book both violates copyright and intellectual property rights, as the picture is generated from copyrighted material. Instead they suggested to put a picture of a freeware program. Here is my response:

I disagree to the best of my understanding. This picture is just the visualized physical memory for illustration purposes only. What about disassembling a function to illustrate a bug? Or dumping memory, for example, a thread structure? Or printing a screenshot from Performance Monitor or Task Manager to illustrate CPU spike? Or a stack trace from a complete memory dump? Does it violate copyright and intellectual property rights because it is generated from copyrighted material? What about the front cover then, showing book spines of hundreds of copyrighted books? If Microsoft asks me to remove the picture, certainly, I’ll do it and reprint the book. And, surely, a memory dump of a freeware program will definitely contain portions of copyrighted material, like ntdll.dll, kernel32.dll or accidental 3rd-party hooks. Regarding a complete memory dump copyrighted material might have been paged out from physical memory and not included in file contents. Do you admit that printing a CRC number violates property rights because it was generated from copyrighted material? Due to the mathematical nature of involved algorithms it is not possible to reconstruct binary code from the printed cover picture which could have been created artificially as well.

What do you think?

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I’ve posted the final Table of Contents and additional information for the soon-to-be-published book:

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1

Note that the proposed back cover image is the picture of a 1Gb complete physical memory dump generated by Dump2Picture:

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

It may appear that I have announced too many titles but they all fall into the well-defined publishing roadmap (excluding a couple of publishing digressions like Debugware book):

This is a high level illustration of global incremental and iterative parts of IIPP (Iterative and Incremental Publishing Process) that I coined some months earlier. More about local iterative and incremental parts in one of my next posts. 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Being committed to writing several books brings the question about the proper writing and publishing process beyond page-a-day time management. Borrowed from software engineering I decided to use iterative and incremental process to finish previously announced Windows® Crash Dump Analysis book. The first iteration will result in this working title:

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume I

This is revised, expanded, commented and cross-referenced 500 page volume of selected blog posts and other useful information. Details will be announced soon so stay tuned. Russian translation is also planned.

The abbreviation “MDAA” actually sounds funny in Russian. Similar to “Hmmm”  :-)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -