I just finished this book a couple of days ago, and loved it! I didn't realize that the full text was available online! It's a fantastic book by Neil Stephenson, the author of Cryptonomicon.
My favorite thing about the book is his use of simple analogies to explain things and
make everything make sense. His explanation of the 4 car companies representing
MS, Apple, Be and Linux, and his use of a story about drills to explain why unix
people are the way they are (search for "hawg" in the link to find that section).