Customer Reviews

Smart Cards : A Guide to Building and Managing Smart Card Applications

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

After reading this book I wasn't any smarter about smart cards. The charts and the introduction made me buy the book. But actually the book is very superficial. There is no real structure or framework that organizes the content. OK, there are chapters, but often it isn't at all clear why certain information is presented in a certain chapter. Also, it is not really clear how the different chapters are distinguished. The title of a chapter usually doesn't help you. Several pieces of information are presented over and over again in different chapters. Most of the information presented is common sense or well known software engineering principles. The information specific to smart cards is limited and not very detailed. Sometimes one could get the feeling that even the authors didn't really know more than the superficial information they present. A coworker of mine uses the term "consultant speak" for that kind of style. The charts and graphic are almost exclusively from other sources and not genuine to the book. They are usually only remotely related to what is discussed in the text and the authors don't bother explaining any of them. The case studies are not what you would normally expect from a case studies. They briefly mention a particular smart card project but don't really go into any details about technology or why certain design decisions were made. Most of the information given in the case study chapters is applicable to any kind of IT project. The check lists are pure common sense and sometimes unintentionally humorous. To sum it up: The book is easy to read but if you are serious about learning about smart cards, it doesn't help you at all. The claim to guide you through the whole process of a smart card project is a gross exaggeration. If you don't already know most of what you need to know from other sources, relying on this book alone will most likely make your project fail. The smart card specific information in the book could have easily been compressed into a nice 10 page white paper.

I have read this book and think it is useless. The author is very hard to understand and the technology is poorly explained.

Very disappointing. I am 75% through this book and struggling to finish it. Whilst the book has some good information (smart card lingo, players in the industry, trends...etc) most are useless because the materials are so badly organised. Filling up the book with charts, diagrams and detailed reference tables of smart card standards does NOT make it a useful book, all are illrelevant without much deeper explanation. Remember when you were in high school, you copied a few paragraphs from one book and a few from an other to "write" an essay --- it reads just like that, very amateurish. A lot of the so called "case study" blah about how good/bad the technology is, but no details. It's an informercial.... "Buy my stuff, and I'm going to make you lots of money. This man with only a high school education bought my tape barely over 3 weeks and he is now making $5000 a week,....blah, blah, blah".... where is the bloody proof ?! It's a damn Monday night informercial. Oh, I actually work for a smart card company so I may be bias. Amazon should introduce half a point, this book is a bit below 1.

Well, now it's 2002, and the the revolution has definitely not been televised. We've heard now from authors like these guys for about, oh, 10 years or so that smart cards are the next revolution. That it's just a matter of time before mag stripe cards are swept aside in this tidal wave of new technology.

Friends, it just ain't gonna happen here in the States. Despite massive attempts by GemPlus and other 'leaders' described in this book, the entire thing has been just one more marketing-driven attempt to force unneeded technology on the masses. The dog didn't hunt, and these 'visionaries' are now unwinding all their efforts here, sending thousands of programmers out on to the streets.

This thinly veiled advertisement, with very poor design and little original content, has suffered the ultimate indignity: history has rendered it all but irrelevant.

All about smart-card industry in a nut-shell. Excellent boo