BKAVSRVL.RVW 961115 "The AltaVista Search Revolution", Richard Seltzer/Eric J. Ray/Deborah S. Ray, 1997, 0-07-882235-1, U$24.95 %A Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com richard.seltzer@ljo.dec.com %A Eric J. Ray ejray@raycomm.com %A Deborah S. Ray debray@raycomm.com %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 %D 1997 %G 0-07-882235-1 %I McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne %O U$24.95 905-430-5000 +1-800-565-5758 +1-905-430-5134 fax: 905-430-5020 %P 274 %T "The AltaVista Search Revolution" The word "the" is used 187,110,494 times on the Web: you can add another 27,587,905 if you add "The". The most common real word is "information". Canada is cited more frequently than California. Welcome to AltaVista. While some may cavil about various subjective considerations, to date I have not found an Internet search engine that can match AltaVista for flexibility, speed, or comprehensive coverage. Digital can be justifiably proud of AltaVista (or, more properly, AltaVista Search Public Service), even if they tend to overhype it from time to time. The first five chapters provide an introduction to AltaVista and a great many useful tips and pointers. (Chapter two even has a canned form that you can paste into your own Web pages.) Unfortunately, the screenshots are all taken from graphical browsers, and Lynx users may find the entry fields a bit more difficult to deal with. (Not to mention the fact that there are at least two different text-only interfaces.) Chapter six has suggested searches for a variety of topics: I found the list unhelpful, but novice users will probably find it to be a lot of fun. Chapter seven provides a history of the development of AltaVista. The trivia in my first paragraph comes from Appendix A, the thousand most common words on the Web. For anyone using (rather than merely surfing) the Web, this book is a valuable guide to an indispensable tool. For anyone else, there is still a lot of really interesting stuff. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKAVSRVL.RVW 961115 ====================== roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca Ceterum censeo CNA Financial Services delendam esse Please note the Peterson story - http://www.netmind.com/~padgett/trial.htm