The Watcher's Guide, Volume 2 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Book Description

"I'm the Slayer. Slay-er. Chosen One? She who hangs out a lot in cemeteries?
Ask around. Look it up: 'Slayer comma The.'"
-- Buffy, "Doomed"

As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, to find them where they gather and to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.

Dig into it: all--new character profiles, episode guides, quotables, and more -- a fully updated volume filled with the latest dirt on your favorite cemetery-hopper!

The Mayor, Faith, Mr. Trick, Angel's return, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, snow in Sunnydale, Graduation Day, Zachary Kralick, the end of the world -- again!, Spike, Veruca, Tara, Riley, Maggie Walsh, The Initiative, Adam -- and much, much more!

The Buffyverse: The World According to Buffy Summers.
Everybody Hurts: In Sunnydale, love can be downright scary.
Anarchy in the USA: How Buffy and Giles came to be footloose and Council-free.
Power Girls: Buffy, Kendra, Faith -- wasn't it supposed to be "Chosen One?"

BONUS: Creating Buffy: From brainstorm, to script, to genius on the small screen -- with a few tiny detours along the way.
Go behind the scenes for Season Four's pivotal episode "The I in Team" and catch all the action, from scouting locations to running lines with the stellar cast to music editing -- it's all inside!

THE GUYS, THE GALS, THE LORE, THE LINGO
The chillingly complete WATCHER'S GUIDE VOLUME 2 will slay you

Customer Reviews:

A Good Guide To Go By.......2004-03-24

I found 'The Watcher's Guide 2' a very interesting book. Not only did it have great detail about the main characters, but special guest stars as well (in character that is). I also found the choice of photos refreshing since they are not the same photos you seem to see everywhere.

Wow- -Unbelievably Bad.......2003-07-16

Like the title says--Unbelievably Bad. Its an official companion to the show, and it sucks. Bit Me--An Unofficial Guide is so much better and much more worth the money. This is pretty much straightforward, spoiler packed, boring takes on the show and its characters. Bit Me, has interesting things about each episode, such as mistakes to look for, while this, just tells about each episode and goes on to the next. This has half page summaries of the characters, while Bite Me has sever pages per, including a summary of Buffy from the Movie to the planning of the show, all the way through the change of networks. i must say, this was one of the most worthless things I've ever bought.

The Bible to seasons 3 and 4.......2003-06-19

The Watcher's guide vol 2 is a definite improvement on the first. It is more geared to the adult viewer and fan and fully covers season 3 and 4 of BtVS.

It is a more indepth review of the actors, characters, behind the scenes workers and of course the episodes. It does an especially good job with the Season 4 finale (restless)- which is confusing and full of symbolic meaning, allusions and prophecy. It also gives us an indepth behind the scenes view of what goes into making a Buffy episode (the I in team).

The book is also filled with great photos and ilustrations. It is a great book for all Buffy fans, and even the casual viewer will appreciate all the nuances that are involved in each episode. Buy this book!

The Agony and the Ecstasy.......2003-02-16

If it was the end of Season 2 that made it clear that Joss Whedon's little fancy of a young Slayer and her doughty band of misfits was a force to be contended with, it was the following two seasons that demonstrated the ability of BTVS to baffle its critics and make original dramatic statements completely beyond the range of standard teen fare. Volume 2 of The Watcher's Guide is a giant concatenation of all that went into the making of those two years. From props to folks, and every kind of critter in between.

This is the time when love blossoms and falls on its face - the spectacular Zander/Willow/Cordelia/Oz breakup playing counterpoint to the winding down of Buffy's relationship with Angel. Then graduation, college, the Initiative and even more strange relationship vibes. The appearance of Riley, Anya, and Tara. The repercussion of these two seasons are still echoing years later, so watching them and learning their backgrounds are required reading for the Buffy fanatic [in my case it's Willow fanatic]

Partially, this is a repeat of Volume 1's style with more details, fewer quotes and a whole lot of interviews. Of course, it is quite a bit thicker. Some of which is explained by the presence of more glossy photos, but a major component is the writers' compulsive expenditure of energy on lengthy interviews. This is a good, not a bad. Moreover, very little is a rehash of the Volume 1 articles. One of my pet likes was the planning of all the staff interviews around the production of Episode 13 from Season 4, 'The I in Team.' It introduces all the people who never get on film, and provides a mini-lesson on what goes into the making of an episode. As I said, if you are going to be a fan you have to read these. So put down the stakes and rest in your coffins with a good book.

Even better than the first Watcher's Guide!.......2002-12-30

While the first Watcher's Guide was almost like a test for the Buffy audience to see if such a book would appeal to them, this second Watcher's Guide is written on the author's knowledge of the success of the first!

Its format is much like that of the first Watcher's Guide with a detailed episode guide and interesting explanations of Joss Whedon's pop culture references in the show. As Season 4 became more complex than previous seasons, this book is an essential and informative guide that will help viewers to understand the meanings of such episodes as "Restless" as well as pick up on smaller things that they may have missed.

It also includes exclusive information about the makeup and behind-the-scenes work done on Buffy including photos of the cast backstage, which is always interesting. There are several pages of colour photos throughout the book which are also a good item to have for any die-hard Buffy fan.

The only gripe I have about this book is that I would have loved to have seen more quotes!! The writing is one of my favourite parts of the TV show so I would have liked to have seen them show off some off Joss' best work! Other than that, this book is a great read for any Buffy fan with a lot of time on their hands; it's a fair bit longer than the first Watcher's Guide but that's just more fascinating information on the show to learn about!

A must-have for any Buffy fans, and it is an obvious addition to the first Watcher's Guide if you already own that one. I say, bring on Watcher's Guide 3!

Book Description

Packed with practical, freely available backup and recovery solutions for Unix, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X systems -- as well as various databases -- this new guide is a complete overhaul of Unix Backup & Recovery by the same author, now revised and expanded with over 75% new material.

Backup & Recovery starts with a complete overview of backup philosophy and design, including the basic backup utilities of tar, dump, cpio, ntbackup, ditto, and rsync. It then explains several open source backup products that automate backups using those utilities, including AMANDA, Bacula, BackupPC, rdiff-backup, and rsnapshot. Backup & Recovery then explains how to perform bare metal recovery of AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS, Solaris, VMWare, & Windows systems using freely-available utilities. The book also provides overviews of the current state of the commercial backup software and hardware market, including overviews of CDP, Data De-duplication, D2D2T, and VTL technology. Finally, it covers how to automate the backups of DB2, Exchange, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL-Server, and Sybase databases - without purchasing a commercial backup product to do so.

For environments of all sizes and budgets, this unique book shows you how to ensure data protection without resorting to expensive commercial solutions. You will soon learn to:

Automate the backup of popular databases without a commercial utility
Perform bare metal recovery of any popular open systems platform, including your PC or laptop
Utilize valuable but often unknown open source backup products
Understand the state of commercial backup software, including explanations of CDP and data de-duplication software
Access the current state of backup hardware, including Virtual Tape Libraries (VTLs)

Customer Reviews:

Very limited viewpoint!.......2007-09-24

I have used many backup utilities in linux, Unix, Windows, and found this book to be only a very basic view of the backup, DR realm.

The best backup book available, but I have requests for the next edition.......2007-07-08

W. Curtis Preston is the king of backups, and his book Backup and Recovery (BAR) is easily the best book available on the subject. Preston makes many good decisions in this book, covering open source projects and considerations for commercial solutions. Tool discussions are accompanied by sound advice and plenty of short war stories. If the author addresses the few concerns I have in his next edition, that should be a five star book.

The best aspect of BAR is the author's obvious expertise in this subject. He does a good job sharing lots of his knowledge with the reader. Probably the most valuable conceptual framework I learned in BAR is the difference between backups and archives. Pages 696-7 summarize this nicely: "Backups are the secondary copy of primary data... Archives are the primary copy of secondary data." In this section and elsewhere, Preston describes how archives are the repository one should create when answering ediscovery requests and similar queries -- not backups. This is an extremely powerful idea and I plan to see how my employer deals with this issue.

The second best aspect of BAR involves multiple chapters on backing up various databases. One can usually find similar coverage in single books on specific databases, but having all information in one book is useful for purposes of comparison. Chapter 15 provides an overview of the entire problem by discussing terminology and features found in many databases. This chapter helps storage admins understand the database admin world. Of particular note was the coverage of Microsoft Exchange, which the book calls a specialized database. I had not thought of Exchange in this light, but it's true -- especially when Microsoft indicates future versions will have SQL Server replacing Extensible Storage Engine. I only read chapters on SQL Server, Exchange, and MySQL.

The third best aspect of BAR includes OS-specific chapters on bare-metal recovery. Although my OS of choice (FreeBSD) didn't merit its own chapter, I felt the material in the bare-metal section was robust enough to help me perform this work if necessary. I really only read the chapters on Windows/Linux and ignored Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, and Mac OS X.

BAR is a good book, so why not five stars? First, I thought the chapters on open source backup options (especially ch 7 on "Open-Source Near CDP") were weak. I wanted to learn a lot more about rdiff-backup, for example, but the tool merited about 5 pages and introduced only the simplest possible invocation. Rsnapshot was also undercovered. It seemed like too many pages were spent on utilities I would probably never use (given newer options) like dump and cpio. I was also not confident I could get very far with Amanda, BackupPC, or Bacula given the detail given to each open source product. (Regarding BackupPC -- I had to guess it was open source and then only found out the truth when its Web site at sf.net was mentioned late in the chapter!)

Second, some topics never really made sense. For example, I still do not understand how snapshots actually work. Calling it a "picture" means nothing to me. Snapshots are mentioned throughout the text, and the explanation that finally appears near the end of the book in a miscellanea chapter doesn't help.

Third, I would really have liked to hear more about services offering backup to the Internet, like Amazon's S3 and others. This MUST be covered in the next edition.

Finally, although the book has lots of advice, it would have been nice to have had a case study chapter where multiple example enterprises demonstrate their backup and recovery solutions. After finishing the book I have lots of ideas floating around, but seeing how a one-person, 100-person, 10,000-person, and 500,000-person environment implement BAR would be greatly appreciated.

An excellent reference.......2007-05-04

In the realm of important things in the world of computers are good backups and equally important is the ability to properly restore those backups. My initial attraction to this book had to do with it being tapered toward open system solutions. I am an avid user of Linux and open-source software, so I was interesting in learning about the free tools that the author writes about.

The author starts out by discussing "The Philosophy of Backup" which covers why backups are so important and how you to find a solution that both meets your needs and your budget. Chapter two goes over what to backup, how often and at what levels. It also discussed what types of disaster to be prepared for, automation, storage, testing and things to look out for on various OS's.

Chapters 3-7 cover open-source backup utilities. In chapter three the author discusses and provides examples of how to use basic utilities such as dump, cpio, tar and dd for Unix systems, ntbackup and System Restore for the Window's crowd, ditto for Mac, and the GNU versions of tar, cpio, and rsync. Chapter's 4-6 discuss Amanda, BackupPC and Bacula. Chapter seven digs into near-continuous data protection and how the open-source community is achieving this, and what tools to use.

By chapter 8 and 9 the author is discussing commercial backup solutions. This section is different from the last in that it doesn't really discuss specific tools and how to use them, but rather it discusses the features of commercial products. This section also covers the various types of backup hardware on the market in an effort to help the reader decide what media best meets their needs.

Chapters 10-14 covers "Bare-Metal Recovery". The author takes you through the process of a bare-metal recovery with Solaris, Linux, Windows, HP-UX, AIX, and Mac OS X.

By chapters 15-22 the author has moved on to database backups and takes you through the various solutions for Oracle, Sybase, IBM DB2, SQL Server, Exchange, PostegreSQL, and MySQL. Finally the author wraps up the book with VMware server backup solutions and discussing data protection.

CONCLUSION
--
I found this book to be a very interesting read. I especially enjoyed the open-source, bare-metal recovery, and database sections. The author does an excellent job of taking the reader through all of the steps including example syntax needed to perform a backup and restore with the various tools discussed. Another high point is that the author includes current tools and techniques. This book holds lots of real world wisdom and I would recommend it to any system administrator, developer, or user who is interested in protecting their data.

These are basic references any serious computer collection needs........2007-04-11

W. Curtis Preston's BACKUP & RECOVERY offers solid hands-on keys to backing up data and recovering from a systems crash - all without using commercial software. From Linux and Windows and Mac OS systems, it surveys backup tools, open-source resources, criteria for evaluating systems and operations, and lessons and tricks to overcome common obstacles, making it a system administrator's top desk reference as well as a pick for libraries catering to this audience. These are basic references any serious computer collection needs.

Backup, backup, backup!.......2007-03-24

Backup and Recovery

If you ever are faced with a technical problem in your IT career, turn to O'Reilly publications and pick a book on the topic. The cover of this book fully describes its content: Inexpensive Backup Solutions for Open Systems.
I was recently faced with the task of backing up MySQL databases, along with setting up reliable backup tools on client's Linux server and Windows workstations. The book helped me find all the answers; it's filled with good and practical information and is supplemented with a "healthy doze" of real life examples and anecdotes.
A good number of backup tools are discussed along with configuration examples and automation procedures. Oracle, HP-UX, Windows, Linux... All you need is here.

Implementing Backup and Recovery: The Readiness Guide for the Enterprise

Average customer rating:

Someone Please Shorten This Book
not that useful. not good at all for netbackup.
Amazing general resource despite vendor-centric approach
A must read for anyone tasked with backup and recovery
Great overview of Backup and Recovery

Implementing Backup and Recovery: The Readiness Guide for the Enterprise
David B Little , and David A. Chapa
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Network Security | Networking | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0471227145

Book Description

Offers the first comprehensive reference on the topic of backup systems for both UNIX and Windows NT
Provides a complete tutorial on the general topic of data backup systems along with a detailed, step-by-step guide for planning and full implementation of backup systems
Authors include personal tips and strategic and tactical advice gained from many company implementations
Uses VERITAS NetBackup product to illustrate backup system functions

Customer Reviews:

Someone Please Shorten This Book.......2006-01-01

I don't know how many more books like this I can read. Except for the examples, its very high level. At least half the book is allocated to middle management-esque writing regarding how the best way to manage "enterprize systems." There is some good information here, but it seems a little too Politically Correct to my tastes. I have not seen a data center that actually operates as the book describes. Also, the author has a relationship with Veritas, so how many of Vertitas' shortcomings can we expect from a book like this? The entire manuscript would have to have passed through Veritas' legal and PR department before getting anywhere near the publisher. So much for getting the real story. As far as alternatives, if the reader is looking for corporate/unix information, Unix Backup and Recovery for UNIX is the way to go. For PC users, you can't beat How to Backup Your Windows Computer. Really, there are very few titles in this area.

not that useful. not good at all for netbackup. .......2004-12-23

not that useful in real life. not good at all for netbackup.
however, it is good for "general knowledge" about backup.
really good for calculating capacity etc.

Amazing general resource despite vendor-centric approach.......2004-03-17

I don't normally find value in general topic books that use a specific product to illustrate concepts; however, this book is an exception. The authors thoroughly cover all of the issues associated with back-up and recovery, including those related to business continuity, disaster recovery, and the affect that back-up and recovery has on service and availability.

Given the pervasiveness of both UNIX (including Linux), and Windows, I like the fact that both operating systems are addressed in the book. I am firmly in the UNIX camp, but it's nearly impossible to find a Linux or UNIX shop that doesn't have at least some critical applications running on Windows servers.

Of course, if you use Netbackup this book is going to be all the more valuable; however, if you don't, do not let the fact that the authors base the concepts and examples on this product dissuade you from buying this book. It is one of the best books on back-up and recovery issues and challenges, regardless of vendor solution used.

A must read for anyone tasked with backup and recovery.......2003-12-24

If you are setting up a new backup and recovery environment, or if you are maintaining an existing strategy, this book is a must read. Not only does it walk you through backup and recovery process from start to finish, it helps you to understand that there is more required to backup - and especially recovery - than simply performing daily backups.

Great overview of Backup and Recovery.......2003-10-21

This book is a must have for the person doing backup and recovery in an enterprise environment. It cuts through all the chase and gets right to the point. A great book for the novice or expert!!!! I've been working in the backup and recovery areana for over 7 years and this book already has some worn out pages.

Average customer rating:

Best book on BR
Definitive guide to Backups
disappointing
The Computer Backup Book
I had almost no experience with *nix

UNIX Backup and Recovery
W. Curtis Preston
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Unix & Linux | O'Reilly | By Publisher | Books

Linux | Unix & Linux | O'Reilly | By Publisher | Books

Look Inside Computer Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1565926420

Amazon.com

The Unix file system is reliable and very well-suited to mission-critical applications in which maximum uptime is key. But it's not flawless, and that's where Unix Backup & Recovery comes in. This book details dozens of strategies for keeping Unix systems online. The strategies range from good administration practices that minimize problems to hot-restore techniques that allow you to recover from breaks as seamlessly as possible. The book also contains absolutely inclusive archive techniques that allow you to restore huge databases and file systems from backup media.

Unix Backup & Recovery includes a lot of general "recommended practices" advice and lots of scary stories about lost files (and more than a few about heroic system administrators who saved the day, or at least the data). But it gets down to brass tacks too, documenting lots of backup and recovery tools that can make the administrator's job much easier when they're used properly (including cpio, tar, and AMANDA). Coverage of specific systems' backup and recovery issues (including those of Solaris, HP-UX, Oracle, Sybase, and Informix) are invaluable, as is the coverage of techniques for extracting information from ancient, obsolete backup media. The point: read this book before you have a disaster, so you can do everything required to head one off and be ready to deal with problems when they happen. --David Wall

Topics covered: Strategies for protecting the contents and availability of Unix systems, particularly those running Solaris, Linux, Compaq True-64 Unix, HP-UX, IRIX, and AIX. Coverage also includes backup and recovery software (free and commercial), and the mechanics of protecting and fixing large database management systems. There's also a lot of advice on defensive administration, backup hardware, and obsolete media.

Book Description

Unix Backup & Recovery provides a complete overview of all facets of Unix backup and recovery, and offers practical, affordable backup and recovery solutions for environments of all sizes and budgets. The book begins with detailed explanations of the native backup utilities available to the Unix administrator, and ends with practical advice on choosing a commercial backup utility. This book:

Describes the features, limitations, and syntax of Unix backup and restore utilities,(including dump, tar, cpio, dd, GNUtar, and GNUcpio) for many popular versions of Unix, including AIX, Compaq Unix, HP-UX, IRIX, SCO, Solaris, and Linux
Provides instructions for installing and configuring freely available backup systems such as AMANDA
Includes ready-to-run shell scripts that automate live backups of Informix, Oracle, and Sybase databases
Presents step-by-step recovery procedures for Oracle, Informix, and Sybase
Presents step-by-step "bare-metal" disaster recovery procedures for AIX, Compaq Unix, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris, and Linux
Describes the design of "disaster recovery" and "highly available" systems
Provides guidance on choosing a commercial backup and recovery system
Describes the features and limitations of backup hardware

Customer Reviews:

Best book on BR.......2007-03-10

This book is important for System Administrators and DBAs. The book is well-written and have discussed all the major UNIX flavors back and recovery. The author went further by discussing the Backup and Recovery of major databases on these UNIX operating systems.
I give 5 stars.

Definitive guide to Backups.......2005-06-30

As a former Unix system administrator, this book proved invaluable to me. Backups are a dreaded responsibility for most as they are not glamorous, but when a backup is needed, the administrator can become a hero or out of a job very quickly depending on thier backups. The author provides some deep insight into the art of backups, drawing upon real world examples that provide insight into the recommendations. The authors quips on real world backup stories is worth the price alone as there is great knowledge to be gained from someone else's mistakes and failures. Truly a gem that should be on EVERY system administrators bookshelf.

disappointing.......2005-01-25

This is the first of the O'Reilly books I have been disappointed in. I bought the book for one reason-- to find out how to restore a / and /usr file system off a remote tape drive. Unfortunately the book does not answer this question, all of its examples assume the server has a local tape drive attached. The authors spend their time touting freebie utilities at the expense of a thourough discussion of the backup and restore capabilities that come with the operating system.

The Computer Backup Book.......2003-10-20

This is *THE* Computer System backup book. It contains all the basics of why you want to backup computer systems, plus many of the real world experience details. It is written from a Unix perspective, but is still applicable to Windows and other non-Unix environments.

I've been using this book as a general guide for several years now. It was a book I watched work it's way through the O'Reilly system from first announcement to general release. I bought it when it first came out. I have not been disappointed in it.

Many people think of computer system backups as a dry old musty topic of interest to nobody in particular. But 9/11 showed how important good disaster recovery planning and procedures could be to a business.

Some of the specifics are now a little out of date, but not by leaps and bounds. It is still very good for its core reason for being - Backups. It is very much less out of date than other computer books on the market today.

I have been dealing with large-scale computer system backups and disaster recovery for large employers for years... and I still consult this book regularly to make sure have not missed anything important. It covers all the topics you need.

I had almost no experience with *nix.......2003-06-16

Even though I was still very new to Linux/UNIX, this book was able to help me create a fully automated backup routine as well as how to restore from those backups. I found the book very easy to read and not at all dry.

Backup and Restore Practices for the Enterprise

Average customer rating:

misprint
for people new to backing up enterprise servers

Backup and Restore Practices for the Enterprise
Stan Stringfellow , Miroslav Klivansky , and Michael Barto
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall PTR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

misprint.......2001-04-30

I ordered 2 copies of this book and both were missing the first 17 pages! You flip the cover and bang, you're at page 18. So obviously this is not a review but more of a heads-up. I did complain to amazon twice, but I got no reply. Just be prepared to return it, in case its been misprinted.

for people new to backing up enterprise servers.......2000-10-05

If you are familiar with backing up Oracle databases using Veritas NetBackup or Legato Networker you probably have most of the knowledge in this book. I saw no surprises or neat little tricks. Probably good for operations managers who need a guide on backing up there enterprise database servers. You can get most of the information on this book off of the web. Save your money.

STORIX LAUNCHES BACKUP/ADAPTABLE SYSTEM RECOVERY FOR LINUX USERS.: An article from: UNIX Update

Average customer rating:

STORIX LAUNCHES BACKUP/ADAPTABLE SYSTEM RECOVERY FOR LINUX USERS.: An article from: UNIX Update
Gale Reference Team
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from UNIX Update, published by Thomson Gale on February 1, 2007. The length of the article is 691 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: STORIX LAUNCHES BACKUP/ADAPTABLE SYSTEM RECOVERY FOR LINUX USERS.
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: UNIX Update (Newsletter)
Date: February 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 18 Issue: 2 Page: NA

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books