From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Instant Internet Guide" by Heslop/Angell Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 12:10:00 MDT BKINSINT.RVW 940324 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Heather Rignanesi, Marketing, x340, 73171.657@Compuserve.com P.O. Box 520 26 Prince Andrew Place Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T8 416-447-5101 fax: 416-443-0948 or Tiffany Moore, Publicity tiffanym@aw.com Bob Donegon bobd@aw.com John Wait, Editor, Corporate and Professional Publishing johnw@aw.com Tom Stone, Editor, Higher Education Division tomsto@aw.com Philip Sutherland, Schulman Series 74640.2405@compuserve.com 1 Jacob Way Reading, MA 01867-9984 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 5851 Guion Road Indianapolis, IN 46254 800-447-2226 "The Instant Internet Guide", Heslop/Angell, 1994, 0-201-62707-8, U$14.95/C$18.95 bheslop@shell.portal.com dangell@shell.portal.com This is an easy, step-by-step, keystroke-by-keystroke, guide that will get you onto the Internet instantly -- providing you are using (1) a dial-up UNIX based Internet provider; (2) pine; and, (3) tin. (It also helps if you already know your way around a modem, but let's not quibble.) With few exceptions, the content is readable and aimed at the newcomer getting onto the net. There is never any overload with technical details, but it would be hard to say that any basic information is missing. Certain simplifications may lead to misconceptions. The phrase, "logging on to the Internet," is used to refer to logging on to the access provider or host. The concept of the Internet as a multi-faceted entity, rather than a single entity, can be important to activities such as telnet, gopher and World Wide Web. Chapters two and three give an introduction to pine and tin. They also introduce email and Usenet news. For those who are using only pine and tin, this presents no problems, but for those, probably a majority, who are using mail agents and news readers other than pine or tin, the general concepts are interwoven with the program specifics. This is not to say that the chapters are useless if you are using other programs. The material is clearly presented and logical. This one major flaw is perhaps the result of relying on experience from only a single system, and it is too bad it degrades from what is otherwise a generally logical and "friendly" presentation. Two minor oddities are the discussing of mail lists under news, rather than mail, and the lack of any discussion of finding email addresses either in chapter two or chapter six (which covers search tools). Chapter four is perhaps more telnet than beginners really need, with an odd digression into IRC. Chapter five is a very solid presentation of ftp, including the various types of archiving and compression programs, but silent on unencode. Most of the general searching and resource tools, such as archie, gopher, WAIS and World Wide Web are logically grouped in chapter six. Chapter seven is "UNIX in About an Hour." It may take a bit longer than that if you want to try things out, but the basics are there, and the placement in the book is appropriate. There is one appendix giving contact info for (again, mostly US) Internet service providers. With the noted exceptions, the book is well put together and tightly crafted. One senses, however, a lack of feeling for the Internet which pervades, say, a "Zen (BKZENINT.RVW) or "Whole Internet" (BKKROL.RVW). This is a professional book, greatly useful to some, potentially more useful to a number of others if the system specificity can be corrected.