“CoffeeScript (http://coffeescript.org) is a little language that complies down to JavaScript,” says this book’s author. “The syntax is inspired by Ruby and Python, and implements many features from those two languages. This book is designed to help you learn CoffeeScript, understand best practices, and start building awesome client-side applications.”

In just 45 pages, MacCaw does a good job of meeting those goals. It is important, he says, to note that “while CoffeeScript’s syntax is often identical with JavaScript’s, it’s not a superset, and therefore some JavaScript keywords, such as function and var, aren’t permitted, and will throw syntax errors. If you’re writing a CoffeeScript file, it needs to be pure CoffeeScript; you can’t intermingle the two languages.”

He explains that “CoffeeScript uses a straight source-to-source compiler, the idea being that every CoffeeScript statement results in an equivalent JavaScript statement.” So, to program in CoffeeScript, you need to also know JavaScript, so you can debug runtime errors.

Along with showing CoffeeScript’s syntax differences from JavaScript, the book describes CoffeeScript’s features and compares CoffeeScript’s idioms with their JavaScript counterparts.

It also shows how to: (1)  compile CoffeeScript files in static sites, using the Cake build system; (2) structure and deploy CoffeeScript client-side application, using CommonJS modules; and (3) effectively use CoffeeScript’s “ability to fix some of JavaScript’s warts.”

 The book has six chapters, and all are illustrated with code samples:

• 1. CoffeeScript Syntax
• 2. CoffeeScript Classes
• 3. CoffeeScript Idioms
• 4. Compiling CoffeeScript
• 5. The Good Parts - Describes what CoffeeScript can’t fix about JavaScript and, more importantly, what it can.
• 6. The Little Conclusion - Discusses “the philosophy behind the changes that CoffeeScript makes to JavaScript”…CoffeeScript aims “to express core JavaScript concepts in as simple and minimal a syntax as we can find for them.”

Alex MacCaw is a Ruby/JavaScript developer and entrepreneur and author of JavaScript Web Applications. Jeremy Ashkenas is the developer of CoffeeScript.

If you are ready to learn CoffeeScript, this nicely focused little book can help you get up to speed quickly on best practices.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. His latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle.

Ready to get your head in the cloud? Understanding PaaS is a well-written and straightforward guide to understanding one of  the three primary areas of cloud computing: Platform as a Service (PaaS).

The other two primary areas, described briefly in this 37-page book, are Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

PaaS fits in the middle of the cloud-computing stack, between SaaS on top and IaaS at the bottom.

“SaaS simply refers to software that is provided on-demand for use,” notes the author, Michael P. McGrath, a founding member of Red Hat’s OpenShift and currently its ”Principal Cloud Architect.” He also is operations manager for all of Red Hat’s PaaS offerings. “There’s no magic to it [SaaS],” he adds. For example:  ”Anyone who has used web mail of any kind has been using SaaS.”

Meanwhile: “Proper IaaS provides a mechanism for people to replace all of their data center hardware needs.” The infrastructure services that can be obtained from the cloud include: host provisioning, load balancing, public and private network connectivity, firewalls, and storage.

“Additionally, all of the dependencies for these services also are provided” by IaaS providers, the author points out.

“PaaS providers offer a platform for others to use,” he adds. “What is being provided is part operating system and part middleware. A proper PaaS provider  takes care of everything needed to run some specific language or technology stack.” And: “PaaS today focuses almost entirely on web solutions. The components an end user interacts with are all web-based and because of this, most PaaS providers excel when it comes to large numbers of short lived process requests.”

McGrath’s book is divided into six short chapters:

1. What is Cloud Computing? – Describes the three levels and shows how to set up a virtual machine via Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). 

2. Why PaaS? - “PaaS provides a carefree environment for developers to work….By utilizing PaaS, developers simply pick the languages and features they want, match those requirements with a provider that has them, and start coding.” Discusses common features, costs and maintenance.

3. What to Expect - “PaaS makes it so easy to run code remotely that options are now available to do all development in the cloud.” Discusses why “a pre-built application may not automatically work when uploaded to PaaS.” Looks at tools, providers, development workflow and automated testing.

4. Examples - Provide code for creating a sample application using Red Hat’s OpenShift platform.

5. Architecture – Focuses on the “three primary concerns when dealing with networking in the cloud”: connectivity, bandwidth and latency.

6. Summary - McGrath says PaaS offers many solutions and now is “an exciting time for cloud providers. Go out, try some, and see how they can make IT easier and once again, enjoyable.”

If you are curious about cloud computing or ready now to try some development in the cloud, add this well-focused little book to your reading list and reference library.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. His latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle.

“It’s no longer enough,” this book’s authors state, “to know how to wrangle HTML, CSS, and a bit of JavaScript. Today’s web developer needs to know how to write testable code, build interactive interfaces, integrate with other services, and sometimes even do some server configuration, or at least a little bit of backend work.”

Their handy, helpful new work offers more than 40 “practical recipes that range from clever CSS tricks that will make your clients happy to server-side configurations that will make life easier for you and your users. You’ll find a mix of tried-and-true techniques and cutting-edge solutions, all aimed at helping you truly discover the best tools for the job.”

Web Development Recipes is organized as seven chapters and two appendices:

• Chapter 1: Eye-Candy Recipes – Covers a few ways to use cascading style sheets (CSS) and other techniques to improve the appearance of web pages.
• Chapter 2: User Interface Recipes – Focuses on techniques to make better user interfaces, including JavaScript frameworks like Knockout and Backbone. Also shows ”how to make better templates for sending HTML emails.”
• Chapter 3:  Data Recipes - Explores ways to work with user data. Shows how to create a simple contact form and gives “a peek” at using CouchDB’s CouchApp to build a database-driven application.
• Chapter 4: Mobile Recipes - Shows ways to work with mobile computing platforms. Focuses on jQuery Mobile, handling multitouch events and helps you “dig a little deeper into how to determine how and when to serve a mobile version of a page to your visitors.”
•  Chapter 5: Workflow Recipes - Focuses on improving your processes, including using Sass to “make your life easier when managing large style sheets.” Also introduces CoffeeScript, “a new dialect for writing JavaScript that produces clean, compliant results.”
• Chapter 6: Testing Recipes – Using automated tests to help you build “bullet-proof” websites. Also, “how to start testing the JavaScript code you write.”
• Chapter 7: Hosting and Deployment Recipes – Building a virtual machine to be used as a testing environment, so you can test before moving to a real production environment. Also covers setting up secure sites, doing redirects properly, and automating website deployments “so you won’t accidentally forget to upload a file.”
•  Appendix A1:  Installing Ruby - Several of the web development recipes require having the Ruby programming language installed on your computer.
• Appendix A2: Bibliography – Lists six works for further reference.  

Along with Ruby, there are a few other prerequisites:

• HTML5 and jQuery
• Working with command-line prompts in a shell on a Windows, OS X or Linux machine.
• QEDServer (can be downloaded from the book’s website).
• A virtual machine (either set up with help from the book or downloaded already configured from a website link in the book).

The source code for the book’s projects also can be downloaded from the book’s website.

In many of the recipes, the authors assume that you have “a little experience with writing client-side code with JavaScript and jQuery.” But if you don’t, they contend you can still learn a lot by reading the recipes and studying the source code they’ve provided.

Each recipe is presented in a straightforward problem, ingredients and solution format, with clear explanations, code examples, illustrations, tips and links to more information.

If you are doing web development work or wanting to move into that arena, Web Development Recipes could be a very good book to keep handy.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. His latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle.

Project management now provides the top use of Microsoft SharePoint 2010, and this updated edition quickly jumps straight into using SharePoint to create and run a Project Management Information System (PMIS). 

The book is written and structured for those “not interested in the nitty-gritty technical details of SharePoint,” the author says. His work “is focused on helping you leverage SharePoint for project management regardless of what industry you are in.”

And he emphasizes: “If you are interested in using SharePoint to deploy a corporate portal, create an ecommerce website, or develop a proprietary SharePoint application, this is not the book for you.”

In organizations large and small and even for individual users, “[t]he main purpose of SharePoint is to empower users with document management and team collaboration tools,” the author notes.  He points out that “SharePoint does not refer to a specific product or technology. Using the phrase ‘Microsoft SharePoint’ is like using the phrase ‘Microsoft Office.” It refers to several aspects of collaborative solutions.”

 This new edition is aimed at project managers, project team members, program managers, IT/IS directors and SharePoint consultants.

The 209-page book has nine chapters:

• 1. Project Kickoff
• 2. Setting Up the PMIS
• 3. Adding PMIS Components
• 4. Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS
• 5. Supporting Team Collaboration
• 6. Project Tracking
• 7. Project Reporting
• 8. Integrating PM Tools
• 9. Project Closing

SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, 2nd Edition is well-written and tightly focused, with how-to instructions and illustrations on nearly every page.  It also provides a case study so readers can practice applying PMIS skills in SharePoint.

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. His latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle.

If you have some game ideas and a little coding experience, this well-focused and well-written book can show you how to get started as a developer of iPhone and iPad game apps.

The author notes: “Most games are typically controlled using a directional pad, analog joysticks, and various buttons. The iPhone and iPad give us a new form of input—Multi-touch. We can track up to 5 individual touches on the iPhone and iPod touch screens and up to 11 individual touches on the iPad. This opens up a whole new genre of games that previously did not exist. This is why [in this book] you are going to learn right from the start how to handle multiple touches on the screen.”

Moore’s 254-page book, which includes a foreword by Steve Wozniak, is organized as follows:

• Preface – “Whether you are racking up points hitting a ball with a paddle or fragging your friends in a 3-D immersive world, the overall game elements are the same.”
• Introduction to XCode – How to register at the App Store as an Apple Developer. (Also see App Store chapter at end of book.) How to get the iOS Dev Center program and download the latest version of XCode. How to build a simple game while you learn various aspects of XCode.
• Hello Pong – How to create a Pong-like air hockey game called “Paddles” as you “learn how to implement multi-touch controls, animation, collision detection, and scoring.”
• Graphics – How to create graphics and use them in your game.
• Physics – How to “improve the paddle controls and create a realistic puck animation” for the “Paddles” game.
• Sounds – How to “create realistic sounds for your game.”
• Computer AI – Shows “how to create a computer player that can play a decent game of air hockey” and includes adding a title screen for the “Paddles” game, “so the player can choose to play against the computer or play the two player mode that has already been implemented.”
• App Store – The author walks you “through the process of submitting your application to the App Store.” He also discusses the necessity to take “a lot of different screenshots, making sure to show the unique parts of your game.” The idea ultimately is to “help the customer make a buy decision” for your app.

Todd Moore founded TMSOFT “to create unique smartphone applications and games.” He is one of the few developers who have had “two apps in iTunes’ Top 20 Paid Downloads.”

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– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer and a former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.

 I believe too much social media can rot the brain and waste many good hours of our lives. So, after I opened a Google+ account (mostly out of curiosity) a few weeks ago, I promptly let it sit unused.

I wasn’t sure what I could do with Google+ and how it might benefit me. Furthermore,  I felt that I was too busy to dig around on it, learn by blunder, and have to open a bunch of help screens and blog postings to try to find more information.

Most of all, I didn’t want to click or check the wrong box and start inviting hundreds of email contacts to join me on Google+. Particularly since there was absolutely nothing about me to see except one photo and a few bare words of “profile.”

Google+: The Missing Manual promises to deliver “the important stuff you need to know.” So I recently got a copy of it and gave Google+ another try.

Kevin Purdy’s book, I am pleased to say, is well-organized for beginners and is proving easy to follow as I gradually enlarge my Google+ beachhead.

I am still trying to figure out how to add Google+ efficiently and effectively to my online social life, as well as my writing and editing business. At this point, I still like Twitter much better. But that fact, likely, is because I have been using it for several years and have devoted a lot of time and effort to writing tweets, sharing links, retweeting information and following interesting people.

Kevin Purdy’s book now is helping me make some choices before I click on some of the Google+ setup links and go crashing off into the digital weeds.

Here is how it’s structured:

• Chapter 1: Getting Started
• Chapter 2: Managing Contacts with Circles
• Chapter 3: Streams, Sharing, and Privacy
• Chapter 4: Notifications
• Chapter 5: Sharing Photos and Videos
• Chapter 6: Hanging Out
• Chapter 7: Searching and Sparks
• Chapter 8: Google+ Mobile
• Chapter 9: Playing Games

With the book’s help, I have ventured forth and tried a few things that I might otherwise have avoided or misunderstood. And I now have more features listed to try out during my next opportunities to spend time with Google+.

I am, frankly, still pondering if — or how deeply — I want to invest my social media time in Google+. But Purdy makes the compelling case that “Google+ is more than just a way to connect with friends, family, and acquaintances online. It’s a smarter way of sharing online that’s tied into all the other Google services you might already use”–such as Gmail and Google Docs.

And: “What Google+ really does differently…is give you nearly total control over who can see each thing you put on Google+, and what kinds things you see and from whom.”

I rate this book a well-written keeper (1) for anyone trying to get started on Google+ and (2) for anyone who, like me, has jumped into it and is now trying to figure it out, feature by feature, during busy days.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.

Good writers know they need more help than they can find in a dictionary and a thesaurus. So they often have collections of reference books that include such works as the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA Handbook and the Associated Press Stylebook.

Consider adding one more specialized stylebook to your collection, particularly if you: (1) you write about, or teach, computer technology; (2) if you are a technical writer assigned to create product manuals for software or hardware; or (3) if you work as an editor of technical articles and technical books.

Microsoft Press recently has released the 4^th edition of its Microsoft Manual of Style. This updated edition “includes guidelines for wired and global audience, cloud computing, publication on devices, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and the natural user interface (NUI).”

The Microsoft Manual of Style is a well-structured and useful guide that can help you improve the clarity, accuracy and style consistency of your technology writing and editing.

The book also offers useful guidelines for global English syntax and machine translation syntax. And its glossary defines more than one thousand terms and acronyms.

These are, of course, times of very rapid change for technology and its terminology. So this latest printed edition of the style manual is, “by necessity, a snapshot” and “by nature a work in progress,” its editors concede.

They emphasize how examples in the book “are labeled as ‘Microsoft Style’ and ‘Not Microsoft Style’ rather than as ‘Correct’ and ‘Incorrect.’ We don’t want to presume to say that the Microsoft way is the only correct way. It’s simply the guidance that we follow in our workplace. In sharing it with others, we hope that the decisions we have made for our content professionals will help you in your own efforts to promote consistency, clarity, and accuracy.”

They have tried to include “as many relevant neologisms as possible” – new words and phrases or new meanings for old terms, recently pushed to the fore by new technology. For example, “[g]esture guidelines for the natural user interface (NUI) introduce what have been non-technical words such as flick, pinch, and tap into the realm of technical documentation.”

A minor ding: the book’s index and usage guides both seem slightly incomplete. For example, in the Introduction, the editors state: “In the world of cloud computing, we now include terabyte (TB), petabyte (PB), and on up to yottabyte (YB), or 10²⁴.” Yet, only terabyte and TB show up in the index and usage guide. PB and YB seem to be missing in action in both areas.

Also, the book spends two pages (16 and 17) explaining (beneath a “Parallelism” heading) how parallelism is used in Microsoft instructional manuals. “Parallelism is ensuring that elements of sentences that are similar in purpose are also similar in structure.” Yet, “parallelism” is not in the index. The term “parallel structure” appears in its place, instead.

These small glitches are not deal breakers. They simply highlight what was stated earlier, that a stylebook is a work always in progress. (Perhaps the fixes will be added in edition five?)

This 4^th edition of the Microsoft Manual of Style is rich with information, examples, guidance and definitions. If you write or edit computer-related technology materials, you need it on your reference shelf.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.

Okay, big confession time. I learned electronics back in the day when vacuum tubes were still state of the art, and ham radio hobbyists happily tinkered with World War II surplus aircraft radios, tank transmitters and telegraph keys that had thigh clamps so radio operators could communicate with HQ while bouncing around in Jeeps.

Electronics is still one of my hobbies. But I haven’t kept good pace with advancing technologies, and I don’t tackle as many do-it-yourself projects as I used to. I have a large cache of small electronics components stashed in plastic crates in a shed. And those crates seldom have been opened in recent years.

This book has changed that. Make: Electronics by Charles Platt has gotten me excited again about wiring up simple projects. It is not a new book. It was published in 2009. But it is still up to date in the teaching of electronics fundamentals. 

Platt’s book approaches electronics the same way I learned it, by burning things out, messing things up and then studying some of the theory, learning how to read schematic diagrams, and learning how be more careful and thoughtful as circuits are wired up. Of course, in my day, some mis-wired electronic projects literally caught on fire, and more than one exploded.

Platt’s how-to experiments, fortunately, use low voltages and low currents, typically 9-volt batteries or a few double-A batteries. The projects can be constructed on small breadboards or perforated boards or even built ”dead-bug style,” where the leads of the components simply are soldered together without any other kind of support.

His well-organized and well-written book keeps its promise to be “a hands-on primer for the new electronics enthusiast.” But it can teach some new tricks to some old electronics hounds, as well.

Make: Electronics begins with a small shopping list. You will need a few inexpensive components and tools to get started. Then it moves into some very basic and classic experiments, such as touching a 9-volt battery to your tongue, making a battery with a lemon, using resistors to reduce the voltage in a circuit, applying too much voltage to an LED and burning it out, and shorting a small battery to feel its heat.

Some fundamental theories of electricity and electronics are introduced. Proper soldering is illustrated. And then, as more theory is examined and explained, the book’s experiments move into progressively more complex projects, such as amplifiers. By the end of the book, the reader is tinkering with basic robotics and microcontrollers.

Platt provides numerous helpful resources and references for further examination, as well.

The only disappointment for me is that radio-frequency projects are limited to the construction of a basic crystal radio. But the author deftly covers a lot of ground in his book, and even simple RF circuits admittedly are better handled by those who have mastered the fundamentals first. 

Bottom line, this book has some circuits I am eager to wire up, because I am in the mood to learn again. Plus, I already have a boatload of parts and tools in storage, just waiting to be used. 

With luck and attention to detail, maybe nothing I build this time will blow up.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer, and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.

A global war for survival is in full battle, and you — or at least one or more of your computers — may now be right at the front line, already in the fight.

Actually, in cyber warfare, there is no “front line.”  As this important book makes unnervingly clear, attacks on business and military data, on financial systems, and on personal information now can — and do – come at any time from anywhere on the planet.

The attackers can be governments, military units, criminal groups, terrorist organizations, hacker gangs, lone-wolf thieves and even mischief makers with little or no agenda except chaos. And what seems to be a damaging infiltration from one nation actually may be controlled by, and coming from, computers in several other nations.

Indeed, some recently successful and damaging attacks against supposedly well-secured systems have been launched from sites very difficult to identify, using networks of infected computers scattered across several continents, including the United States. And the owners of the infected computers had no idea their machines were involved.

Jeffrey Carr’s updated book is aimed at political and military leaders, policy makers,  and corporate executives responsible for securing data systems and sensitive information. Yet everyday computer users need to read it, too, to have a clearer sense of what we are all up against now. We must understand the risks well enough to help pressure lawmakers, corporate leaders and others to make good choices regarding data security and protecting intellectual property.

The author is a cyber intelligence expert and consultant whose specialty is investigating “cyber attacks against governments and infrastructures by state and non-state hackers.”

Carr’s well-written second edition covers such topics as: the cyber-warfare capabilities of a wide range of nation-states, from Australia and Nigeria to China, the Russian Federation and the United States; how organized crime operates and profits in cyberspace; the difficulty of responding to international cyber attacks as acts of war; and national and international legal issues that affect cyber warfare.

Some foreign governments, Carr points out, are believed to condone and even sponsor cyber attacks. Others are well aware of the digital lawbreakers operating within their borders, yet prosecute only a selected few cases. For example, Carr notes, “in the Russian Federation, the police are interested only in arresting hackers for financial crimes against Russian companies. Hacking attacks cloaked in nationalism are not only not prosecuted by Russian authorities, but they are encouraged…” through a variety of proxies.

Against technically savvy, well-funded and government-coddled hackers, your outdated virus protection software and your dogs’-names passwords are very thin, very porus shields, indeed. 

Carr offers a number of recommendations to American policymakers who must wrestle with Internet and data security issues, plus protection of intellectual property. One of his strongest recommendations is a call for the Department of Defense to throw Windows out the Pentagon’s windows and replace it with Red Hat Linux.

“Red Hat Linux,” he writes, “is a proven secure OS with less than 90% of the bugs found per 1,000 lines of code than in Windows. Many decision makers don’t know that it is the most certified operating system in the world, and it’s already in use by some of the US government’s most secretive agencies.” He adds: “Linux certainly has its vulnerabilities, but the math speaks for itself. Shoot Windows and eliminate the majority of the malware threat with one stroke.”

He also wants sharp crackdowns on “US companies that provide Internet services to individuals and companies who engage in illegal activities, provide false WHOIS information, and other indicators that they are potential platforms for cyber attacks.”

But anyone who connects a computer to the Internet and is active on social media needs to be aware of the risks and high stakes involved in the cyber warfare now being fought between and among governments, criminal groups, terrorist organizations, hacker gangs and lone-wolf troublemakers.

Even as you read this, your personal computer or your company’s servers may be secretly helping North Korea, Iran, China, a drug cartel or a lone, bored hacker launch a cyber attack somewhere else in the world.

You may not be a high-value data target. Yet, even with just one laptop computer, you can become an unwilling and unknowing foot soldier for the wrong side.

These are scary thoughts, and you can’t wish them away. Read this important book to get the big, unnerving picture.

Then start thinking–fast–of ways to better protect your computers, data, intellectual property and personal information.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer, and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.

In this controversial new book from O’Reilly Media, veteran software developer, open source guru and political advocate Clay A. Johnson makes the forceful argument that our current mania for consuming information is killing us, mentally and physically.

First, we are sitting too much and too long while consuming data from the Web, from TV, from smart phones, from books, and while driving around in our cars listening to blather on the radio.

And, much of what we are consuming is crap – the digital equivalent of high-fat junk food and raw sugar. Some of us now are driving ourselves to destructive distraction through gluttonous obsessions with tweets, status updates, downloads, videos,  instant messages, text messages, emails and restless Web surfing.

For instance, suppose a tweet just went by mentioning some kind of rumored problem with pig populations in Zambia, and you idly read it, processed it in your head, wasted a few more seconds of your life, and took another sip of your latte and took another bite of bagel while continuing to sit on your butt much longer than you intended.

Then you checked your Facebook account on your iPhone or iPad, took another sip of your latte, took another bite of bagel, and went back to Twitter and followed a link to what seemed to be a review of a movie you’ve already seen to see but turned out to be just a lame blog post about how Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich resemble certain characters in Avatar. Then you took another bite of bagel, another sip of latte and checked your email and followed a link to something about Lady Gaga.

More wasted time. More attention to generally useless information. More sedentary life gone by.

We now spend nearly 11 hours a day consuming – frequently gorging on – information, Johnson’s book points out. And it’s driving us to distraction – and killing us.

First, the physical dangers. Johnson notes: “In 2004, one physician coined the term Sedentary Death Syndrome to classify all the diseases that come from the sedentary state. The effects: heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and yes, obesity. Some researchers are calling it the second largest threat to public health in America. What are we doing when we’re sedentary? Few of us are meditating. We’re consuming information.”

He continues: “New research points to sitting, especially amongst men, as a leading cause of death. Even if you exercise regularly, it turns out that sitting for long periods of time can be deadly.”

It’s also easy to lose track of time and lose control of time management while distracted by the free flow of information. Something unexpected or surprising or outrageous on the Web grabs your attention, and your carefully crafted to-do list for the day is shot to hell. And, relationships can be affected: “Just a quick check of email when we get home can often end up in evenings entirely lost to LCD screens…” instead of talking and paying attention to each other.

Then there’s the problem of “attention fatigue.” Writes Johnson: “About two years ago, I started to wonder: what the heck happened to my short-term memory? And where did my attention span go? I’ve written a little pithy 140-character tweet, sent it into the universe, and in no more than five minutes, I’ve received a reply. The only problem is, I’ve already forgotten what I wrote in the first place. I’ve had to go back, and look at what I said just five minutes ago to understand what the person replying to me is referencing.”

This book offers more dire warnings about consuming too much information. But the author also offers ideas and recommendations for achieving “Attention Fitness.” You can still have your information and consume it, too, in deliberate, conscious doses that are healthier for your mind, body and your participation in American democracy.

If you pay attention to this book long enough to actually think about what it points out and proposes, you may figure out how to get healthier again, how to regain your focus – and how to better understand the ways you are being duped by some of the misinformation constantly sucked into your head by your addiction.

You can become a more conscious and proactive consumer of information and not just another wasted – and life-wasting — data junkie.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer, and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.