BKGTONLN.RVW 940315 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 22 Worchester Road Rexdale, Ontario M9W 9Z9 800-263-1590 or 605 Third Avenue New York, NY 10158-0012 USA 800-263-1590 212-850-6630 Fax: 212-850-6799 jdemarra@wiley.com aponnamm@jwiley.com "Get On-Line!", Wood, 1993, 0-471-58926-8, U$24.95 Most computer users do not yet have a modem, or don't use it on a regular basis. Those who do get a modem need a fair amount of help from a knowledgeable friend. It would be helpful to have a book which covers all of the traps of buying a modem, what you need, how to hook it up, how to set up the configuration and software, and how to connect to some outside source. The basics of how to deal with email, file transfers, and how to use material with other programs. This is what Wood tried to do. He only partially succeeds. First, you had better have a PC and either Procomm Plus, Crosstalk XVI, Smartcom EZ or Windows Terminal. The descriptions of functions are written strictly for field independent people: those who don't care what is going on, they just want to know what key to press. As long as nothing goes wrong with the communications session, this is fine. Online devotees will know that the chances of nothing going wrong are extremely slim. Wood's material is quite dated. It is very odd that any book written in the past two years and purporting to advise on modem purchase does not mention 14400 bps modems. Also odd is the recommendation to buy MNP 3 or 4 modems: I haven't personally seen one with less than MNP 5 in more than four years. I also haven't seen an acoustic coupler modem available for quite some time. The content is also quite sparse in places. While I can appreciate the desire to write for the non-technical user, the truth is that computer communications is still a field requiring some background to set up. Wood mentions the possible problems with COM ports and IRQ levels--but only mentions them. There simply isn't enough information here even to start to diagnose or rectify an interrupt conflict problem. The book even suggests that COM ports on computers are so labelled, an unlikely eventuality. This style follows through to the communications parameter settings. Wood does give good suggestions for default settings, but no means of determining problems. The book does contain a smattering of everything. There is a bit on portable communications, online services of various types, netiquette, and so forth. Since these are not really the main thrust of the book, one does not expect extensive discussion, but it seems a bit terse to dismiss the Internet in less than two pages as an "echo network" and "more chaotic than any of the BBS echo networks." (There are quite a number of errors in the short piece on the Internet. And I should also mention a section on viral programs which lists seven antiviral vendors--four of whom are McAfee agents.) For novices, this does give a good starting guide, but only that. You will still need your knowledgeable friend. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKGTONLN.RVW 940315 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Oct. '94) Springer-Verlag