Embedded Internet Design

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Introduction to a complex topic
Review: I think soon every device you can imagine will be internet enabled. This book is a good introduction for people like me that aren't internet gurus. It isn't really about the hardware. It is about the internet protocols and how to work with them using small hardware.

Another review said it wasn't a TINI tutorial. That's true. It doesn't say that it is. You do need to RTFM this book is more about internet concepts and less about the specific tools although it uses the TINI and the Stamp thing. I don't have either of these chips yet, but the ideas were useful.

That same review said the code wasn't well commented. That depends... there aren't a lot of simple comments in the code but I found comments where they were necessary. And the text in the chapter explains the code in a lot of detail. So if you are just skimming the listings, yes the code might seem hard to follow. But if you read the text the code is explained in great detail.

I do wish the code were on a disk or on the net. I may buy a TINI or a Stamp and try some of the projects. If the code were available I'd have given it a 5.

I'm about 1/2 through the book and how the internet works at a detailed level is much clearer to me now. If you want a good introduction to networking a micro you will enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: lightweight introduction, not for practical use
Review: If you are looking for a lightweight introduction to embedded internet this is not a bad book.
If you have plans to internet enable your javelin stamp, this is your only source.
But if you plan to use TINI to do the job, you will be much better off with the book "Designing Embedded Internet Devices" from NewNess press (ISBN: 1878707981).
The book lacks a decent introduction to the TINI development environment. Also the source code is not documented at all. There is just a bit of wrap text around each code example, not explaining what is happening in the code.
And if you finally want to use the source code you will have to retype it, cause there's neither a cdrom or a website of the book available.
My advice (if not interested in javelin stamp): Buy the 'other' book !

Rating:
Summary: Better title: "Connecting TINI and Javelin to the Internet"
Review: This book provides excellent examples of linking TINI and Javelin-based systems to the Internet; however, the title ("Embedded Internet Design") is slightly misleading. The book discusses connecting two specific embedded systems (TINI [website] and Javelin [[website]]) to the Internet. It does not deal with designing embedded Internet-aware systems, nor does it deal with embedded systems other than the aforementioned two - except in abstract terms. However, I suspect that most people looking to buy this book are interested in exactly what it discusses and won't buy it believing that they will learn how to design embedded systems. I'm not even sure what "Embedded Internet Design" actually means...

The user is initially presented with an overview of how the Internet works and how to use Java, both of which are sufficient as an introduction, but readers who need to learn more about either subject would be well advised to obtain books dedicated to those topics. These introductions occupy about 1/5 of the book.

The rest of the book does serve nicely as a cookbook for connecting TINI and Javelin-based systems to the Internet (i.e., connecting to POP servers, using UDP and TCP packets, etc.). Other reviews have mentioned a competing book for information on using TINI-based systems, and I haven't read that book as a comparison. However, the TINI section is certainly sufficient, as is the Javelin section. This book will show you how to use either chip to connect directly or indirectly to the Internet, and, if that's what you want to do, then you'll be happy with this book...with one exception. As mentioned in, I think, EVERY other review, this book LACKS ONLINE SOURCE CODE! To me, that's an unforgiveable sin, and drops a couple of stars from my rating.

I bought this book because, as a professional Java programmer who is just now experimenting with hardware, I wanted to learn how to make my designs accessible to the 'net. I feel like I know how to do that now. However, as mentioned, I am very disappointed that I need to type in all of the code, which, by the way, seems to occupy about a fifth of the 318 pages of the book. That is a LOT of code to type in manually. It's great to have all of that code as examples; it just should be a matter of cut-and-paste to actually use it.