BKUSNINT.RVW 941003 "Using the Internet", Tolhurst et al, 1994, 1-56529-353-3, U$39.95/C$52.95 %A William A. Tolhurst %A Mary Ann Pike %A Keith A. Blanton %C 201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290 %D 1994 %G 1-56529-353-3 %I Que Corporation %O U$39.95/C$52.95 75141.2102@compuserve.com 75141.2104@compuserve.com %P 1188 %T "Using the Internet" This is the second-heaviest Internet guide that I have reviewed to date. It has some helpful resources, and covers some areas which other guides don't. It is a reasonable, if somewhat terse and technical introduction to the major Internet tools. It is also derivative, of wildly varying audience level, and overlong in parts. The organizational structure is understandable, but not, perhaps, very helpful to novice users. An enormous introductory section (it has a chapter of almost a hundred pages on legal issues, alone) comes before the material on Internet tools. The third section is rather odd, having an introduction to the modem (unlikely to help new users set one up) and then remaining Internet applications. Section four lists Internet access providers of various types. The list is nowhere near being complete, and would better have been organized as a single file with notes about access types. Section five reprints the Spafford/Lawrence Usenet and da Silva mailing list descriptions as well as a file of Internet standards documents. An interesting inclusion is an ftp archive site resource, with descriptions of directories. Among the appendices is a quick reference to UNIX. The work attempts to be all things to all users, and therefore fails. Experienced Internauts may find the ftp site list handy to pass along to novices, but will find little else of value. Beginners simply will not get the help they need out of items such as the chapter on modems, but have no need for the detail involved in describing every single ftp command. The resources provided are handy, the more so since they are provided in searchable form on the disk. Ultimately, though, these are already-dated copies of material available on the net, itself. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKUSNINT.RVW 941003 ====================== 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" 0-387-94311-0/3-540-94311-0