BKSEUINT.RVW   980208

"Special Edition Using the Internet", Jerry Honeycutt, 1998,
0-7897-1403-5, U$39.99/C$56.95/UK#37.49
%A   Jerry Honeycutt jerry@honeycutt.com
%C   201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN   46290
%D   1998
%G   0-7897-1403-5
%I   Macmillan Computer Publishing (MCP)
%O   U$39.99/C$56.95/UK#37.49 800-858-7674 info@mcp.com
%P   726 p. + CD-ROM
%T   "Special Edition Using the Internet, Fourth Edition"

This book has less to do with using the Internet, than with using
specific Internet applications.  The content is generally appropriate
for a novice user level, but it does have gaps in coverage.

Chapter one is a brief history of the Internet.  However, even in that
short space, knowledgeable readers will find some errors.  Chapter two
proceeds with a description of how the Internet works.  The chapter is
quite short and skips a lot, but this material does a lot better in
terms of accuracy, although sometimes it may be misleading.  For
example, it is probably true that the best match for modems is to have
two of the same brand and model, but there are such things as
standards.

Part two deals with getting connected to the net.  The look at
commercial online services in chapter three may be a bit dicey given
the massive changes currently taking place.  However, it does give you
valuable tips, such as the fact that AOL and Compuserve use
proprietary mail servers, and you cannot use the more commonly used
mail clients.  Chapter four's instructions for connecting via an ISP
(Internet Service Provider) does give instructions for all of Windows
3.1, Windows 95, and Windows NT 4.0, but the directions do have some
gaps.  (These seem to be the guidelines Microsoft gives you, and I
have first hand experience in the frustrations they can cause.)  Since
installation of either Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer 4 is
pretty easy, chapter five is as well.  A caveat, though: the chapter
does not mention the security problems rampant in IE 4, nor does it
tell you how to get rid of it, once installed and "integrated." 
Troubleshooting a modem, however, is quite different.  The content in
chapter six is sometimes too simple, and sometimes too complex, to be
of help to the average user.  Chapter seven, on upgrading the speed of
your Internet connection, is probably even trickier.  At the moment
this advice can probably be reduced to "see your supplier."

Part three concentrates on the Web.  As with installation of the
browsers, so exploring the Web is supposedly easy, and chapter eight
is likely up to the task.  Chapter nine gives a quick once over of
Internet Explorer, and some of the more useful features.  Again,
though, the text does not mention security issues, particularly with
ActiveX controls.  Chapter ten introduces channels in Internet
Explorer.  Netscape Navigator and Netcaster get the same treatment in
chapters eleven and twelve.  Chapter thirteen compares some Web search
agents which collect pages for offline reading.  This seems a bit out
of order with the coverage of online search engines in chapter
fourteen.  Chapter fourteen also contains some miscellaneous site and
service suggestions.

Part four moves into mail and news.  Chapter fifteen is a general
introduction to the concepts.  Unfortunately, it seems to be more
interested in cute acronyms than useful information like how to use
mail servers.  Chapter sixteen's brief look at Microsoft Outlook
Express is also more interested in formatting than in informing the
reader that most correspondents will only find it annoying.  The
coverage of Netscape Messenger and Collabra in chapter seventeen is
slightly more detailed, but Free Agent, in eighteen, and Eudora, in
nineteen, are fairly terse again.    The information on file
attachments in chapter twenty is better than the "point and click"
discussion I have come to expect, but it does boil down to "use
WinZIP."  Honeycutt also seems to have confused the MIME (Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions) mail format with the base64 encoding method. 
Chapter twenty-one's details on mailing lists are short, but cover the
topic, including netiquette, quite adequately.

Part five refers to the old standbys of ftp, telnet, gopher, and WAIS
(Wide Area Information Server) as "obscure."  Chapter twenty two does
a very good job on ftp, covering the browser interface, specific ftp
clients, and even the command line interface.  Chapter twenty three
does all right with telnet and gopher, but is definitely short on
WAIS.

Part six's definition of "interactive" seems to relate to "fun" since
it covers chat, multimedia, and games.  Oddly, however, there is no
mention of MUDs (Multiple User Domains), the chat games.  In fact, all
of the chapters in this section seem to be missing something. 
"Chatting on the Internet" (twenty four) covers Netscape Chat and
Microsoft Comichat as well as the ubiquitous mIRC, but doesn't mention
the different IRC networks.  Internet telephony still requires some
hardware considerations, and chapter twenty five isn't long enough to
cover it.  Chapter twenty six looks at only two of the many streaming
media products.  The games chapter is good, but definitely can't cover
everything.

Creating your own Web site, in part seven, is, of course, not
concerned with sites as much as pages.  Chapter twenty eight is a
brief but basic guide to HTML (HyperText Markup Language), but it does
at least use a workable form, rather than relying on CGI (Common
Gateway Interface) programming that doesn't exist for the reader. 
Chapters twenty nine and thirty create pages with Composer and
Frontpage.  The coverage of channel creation in chapter thirty one is
hard to follow because of the lack of basic explanation first.

Part eight concludes the book with an attempt to make the Internet
safe.  Chapter thirty two presents a lot of misinformation about
viruses, and almost no help.  The material on "securing" your Web
browser, in chapter thirty three, do *not* address the security issue
fully, discussing only certificates and the common access denying
programs that parents generally use in a probably futile attempt to
keep their kids off porn sites.

The book, overall, is primarily concerned with specific programs. 
Microsoft and Netscape are the leading contenders, with Microsoft
having a decided edge.  Once you know how to use the applications,
there is still much to learn about using the net, and this latter
information is in rather short supply.  The content of the book is
enough to get newcomers started, and may have some items of interest
to intermediate users as well.  However, as far as the dust jacket
advertisement of the book as "Comprehensive.  Authoritative. 
Recommended." I really couldn't endorse any of the three.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKSEUINT.RVW   980208