Bricklin on Technology, ISBN: 978-0-470-40237-5
Bricklin on Technology Reviews
Here are some reviews of Bricklin on Technology:
...it was my favorite read of the summer. I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone interested in both
the history of technology and the thought process and observations of one of the undisputed computer technology pioneers.
Yet it's not just the content of the book, which I'll talk about in a minute, that fascinates me. The book as a package brilliantly makes the case for the value of a book collection of previously-published blog posts, essays and transcripts thoughtfully arranged and updated. I actually read a good number of the posts feature in the book when they came out, but to have them in one place, in a context and sequence made them feel like new discoveries to me.
"Curation" is a popular buzzword these days, but I get a sense of the value of collection and curation from the way this book is arranged.
However, I'm not recommending the book for its arrangement. It's simply a great collection of essays, many of them grappling with issues that have been with us throughout the Internet era, and looking at them in their original contexts in the past, as they now exist, and how they might persist into the future...
...I want you to go out and read Bricklin on Technology... For me, the book has reshaped my thinking and focus and the ideas have begun to filter into my writing and podcasts.
Yet it's not just the content of the book, which I'll talk about in a minute, that fascinates me. The book as a package brilliantly makes the case for the value of a book collection of previously-published blog posts, essays and transcripts thoughtfully arranged and updated. I actually read a good number of the posts feature in the book when they came out, but to have them in one place, in a context and sequence made them feel like new discoveries to me.
"Curation" is a popular buzzword these days, but I get a sense of the value of collection and curation from the way this book is arranged.
However, I'm not recommending the book for its arrangement. It's simply a great collection of essays, many of them grappling with issues that have been with us throughout the Internet era, and looking at them in their original contexts in the past, as they now exist, and how they might persist into the future...
...I want you to go out and read Bricklin on Technology... For me, the book has reshaped my thinking and focus and the ideas have begun to filter into my writing and podcasts.
First Reviews on Amazon
(from Brad Feld, Scott Kirsner, and Eric Lundquist)
Scott Kirsner's review is titled "Valuable
collection of tech history, current perspective, and interviews". Here's what he wrote:
Bricklin has assembled a really valuable collection of visionary blog posts, interviews with people on the front lines of technological innovation, and PC industry history (he was the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet -- which is credited as being the original "killer app"). I especially enjoyed chapters two and three, which focus on what people will pay for in the digital world, and the way the media industries have tried to deal with easy copying (Napster, Grokster, BitTorrent, etc.) Entrepreneurs will probably appreciate chapter seven, which focuses on tools that Bricklin thinks ought to be created (or improved). "Bricklin on Technology" is like downloading a few gigs of Dan's brilliance directly to your cerebral cortex.
Eric Lundquist's is titled "A must read for thinking techies":
I ran into Dan at a Boston Tech Tuesday meeting recently. I've known Dan since he was a regular at our PC Week Spencer Katt parties. In his new book "On Technology" he accomplishes a singular feat. He mixes past short form blogs and posts with long form essays to provide perspective on our technology-driven society. I particularly liked his long form on thoughts on blogging following his 2004 Democratic Convention Coverage. My favorite photo was of Dan doing a demo of VisiCalc at the 1979 (!) West Coast Computer Faire. If you had to pick one book that gives you a where did we come from and where are we going tech direction, this is it.
Brad Feld's review, tiled "Superb Romp Through Technology Via Dan Bricklin", was the first posted on Amazon. It is basically the same as the review that he posted on his blog (which is listed next).
Bricklin has assembled a really valuable collection of visionary blog posts, interviews with people on the front lines of technological innovation, and PC industry history (he was the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet -- which is credited as being the original "killer app"). I especially enjoyed chapters two and three, which focus on what people will pay for in the digital world, and the way the media industries have tried to deal with easy copying (Napster, Grokster, BitTorrent, etc.) Entrepreneurs will probably appreciate chapter seven, which focuses on tools that Bricklin thinks ought to be created (or improved). "Bricklin on Technology" is like downloading a few gigs of Dan's brilliance directly to your cerebral cortex.
Eric Lundquist's is titled "A must read for thinking techies":
I ran into Dan at a Boston Tech Tuesday meeting recently. I've known Dan since he was a regular at our PC Week Spencer Katt parties. In his new book "On Technology" he accomplishes a singular feat. He mixes past short form blogs and posts with long form essays to provide perspective on our technology-driven society. I particularly liked his long form on thoughts on blogging following his 2004 Democratic Convention Coverage. My favorite photo was of Dan doing a demo of VisiCalc at the 1979 (!) West Coast Computer Faire. If you had to pick one book that gives you a where did we come from and where are we going tech direction, this is it.
Brad Feld's review, tiled "Superb Romp Through Technology Via Dan Bricklin", was the first posted on Amazon. It is basically the same as the review that he posted on his blog (which is listed next).
I haven't been reading that much lately (only 27 books so far this year) so I had a nice weekend chewing
on a handful of them as I tried to catch my breath from a few weeks of constantly moving around.
The first - and most enjoyable - was Bricklin on Technology. I've somehow managed to end up with three of them - I know that Dan Bricklin sent me one and Amazon sent me one, but I don't know where the third came from. Dan told me about this book a few months ago when I saw him in Boston at the TechStars for a Day event. He's done an outstanding job of combining his essays on computing with updated thinking along with a bunch of great history. There are a dozen chapters - each are a "mini-book" within the book. My favorite was Chapter 12: VisiCalc (which is - not surprisingly - the history of VisiCalc) but the other chapters are all great and include things like:
The first - and most enjoyable - was Bricklin on Technology. I've somehow managed to end up with three of them - I know that Dan Bricklin sent me one and Amazon sent me one, but I don't know where the third came from. Dan told me about this book a few months ago when I saw him in Boston at the TechStars for a Day event. He's done an outstanding job of combining his essays on computing with updated thinking along with a bunch of great history. There are a dozen chapters - each are a "mini-book" within the book. My favorite was Chapter 12: VisiCalc (which is - not surprisingly - the history of VisiCalc) but the other chapters are all great and include things like:
* What Will People Pay For?I've always loved the way Dan's brain works and Bricklin on Technology is a bunch of it in one portable package.
* The Recording Industry and Copying
* Leveraging the Crowd
* Blogging and Podcasting: Observations through Their Development
* Tools: My Philosophy about What We Should Be Developing
Host Phil Windley and Scott Lemon interviewed me about my book in this 58 minute podcast.
Most of the discussion was about turning blogs into books,
(especially this book) but some of the conversation was about topics in the book.
We also talked a bit about the challenges of moving a book like mine to devices like the Amazon Kindle.
Some quotes:
Phil [3:18]: "If any of the listeners have any hesitancy about a blog that got turned into a book, don't have it about this one because this one, actually, I found to be fascinating."
Phil [22:38]: "It's very readable, I think, as what you might call a popular technology book intended for a lay audience."
Scott: "It turned out very good that way."
Phil [34:30] "When I saw what you've done, I thought, you know, if I really wanted to put my blog into a book, this is a good model . . . I think the biggest surprise for me was just the way you had taken material, spread out across time, brought it together into topics and written around it to give it context, and then you set the blog posts off separately with this kind of dotted line format around it -- that made it all work for me. I said, OK, I see how this could work now."
Scott: "When I first saw the book and how large it was I was thinking, oh my gosh, that's a ton to read, but what's fascinating, like Phil said, is that once I got in and started reading it actually flows well."
Some quotes:
Phil [3:18]: "If any of the listeners have any hesitancy about a blog that got turned into a book, don't have it about this one because this one, actually, I found to be fascinating."
Phil [22:38]: "It's very readable, I think, as what you might call a popular technology book intended for a lay audience."
Scott: "It turned out very good that way."
Phil [34:30] "When I saw what you've done, I thought, you know, if I really wanted to put my blog into a book, this is a good model . . . I think the biggest surprise for me was just the way you had taken material, spread out across time, brought it together into topics and written around it to give it context, and then you set the blog posts off separately with this kind of dotted line format around it -- that made it all work for me. I said, OK, I see how this could work now."
Scott: "When I first saw the book and how large it was I was thinking, oh my gosh, that's a ton to read, but what's fascinating, like Phil said, is that once I got in and started reading it actually flows well."