Safari Books Online

The Good

First, it's compact. I have bookshelves at home stuffed with books that I never look at anymore. Many are technical books. Either I've mastered the technology they cover or I'm no longer interested in thier contents (does anyone need to master DOS anymore?). But since I can't bring myself to throw anything away (especially things I've paid good money for), they just sit on my shelves, taking up space. Safari Books take up no space, except maybe some space on O'Reilly's servers (that's their problem). With Safari Books, I can be reading a dozen books and never have to figure out where I'm going to put them.

Second, they're up to date. Many of those books taking up space are just plain out of date. And many I bought when more current versions were already in print! I bought the old versions not knowing newer versions were available. So I was obsolesced before I even cracked them open. All books on Safari are the latest versions of the books, and have handy links to any errata (if any). As any technogeek knows, being up to date with rapidly changing technologies is vital.

A Listing of Rough Cuts

Third, you can read books before they even get printed. Yes! Safari has hundreds of books that users can read before they even make it to the presses. They're called Rough Cuts and users can read them and comment on them before they're finalized. How awesome is that?

Fourth, it's easier than print. Several technical books have code samples that the reader is expected to type in. While some code with CDs or downloads of the sample code, that's a pain: CDs are cumbersome, URLs go offline. With the Safari version of the books, since it's in HTML (most, at least), you can just select and copy the code directly from the browser! This feature alone would have saved me hundreds of hours in the past.

Fifth, it's cheaper. Safari has three membership plans. The first two let you read a few books at a time (5 or 10, depending on the plan). Before you read an additional book, you have to remove one of the books on your "bookshelf". The third plan, Unlimited Access, is self-explanatory: it gives you unhindered access to the entire Safari Catalog (translation, all the books printed by O'Reilly, Microsoft Press, Addison-Wesley, SAMs and many others). It's like going hog-wild in a bookstore! You're not limited to how many books you can read or how many "favorites" you can tag. You're set loose!

I highly recommend this plan because when you look at it, it costs about as much as one technical book a month (as of this writing, $42.99/month). In one month you can read several books for the cost of just one single book.

Sixth, it's more convenient. Technical books are big. They're heavy. When you carry them around, you look like a dork. But Safari Books are all nicely tucked away on O'Reilly's servers. No one has to know you're a geek! Okay, your physical appearance is a dead giveaway, but you don't have to carry around heavy books anymore! And you can access them from wherever you can find a web browser.

But it gets better! What if you're traveling and want to read your book? Most planes still don't have Internet access (or if they do, they charge plenty for it). With Safari books you can download chapters or the entire book as a PDF, then you can read it at your leisure, access or not. It just requires a little planning.

Seventh, it's chock full of features. Safari lets you bookmark your progress in a book (an obvious feature, but an essential one) so you can pick up right where you left off. You can mark your favorite books, attach notes to pages and jump around the books to your hearts content (for example, you can jump to a specific page or to a certain section).

Eighth, I can see your notes. You can add notes to pages that are just for you (private) or for the world at large (public). So if there's an error on a page that isn't noted in the errata, you can point it out. Or you can make a personal note about a page that's of special interest to you. Safari lets you look at your notes in a nice list, so you can quickly find material that you noted was of special interest.

Ninth, it comes with a magnifying glass. For every page, you can increase or reduce the size of the text. While this isn't really necessary for HTML (it's easy to increase font size for browsers), it's a great feature for highly graphical books, like the Head First series. It's more convenient than the browser's settings, so I use it even when I need bigger HTML text. But, to be honest, I've only needed it once or twice, and then only for graphics. The default sizes are usually just right.

Last, video killed the print star. While I've never used this feature, I think it's incredibly cool. Safari has hundreds of videos that demonstrate several technologies. While this doesn't make sense for straight-out coding, it's useful for things like PhotoShop tutorials. And with Unlimited Access, you can watch them all!

The Bad —>