Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 06:33 CDT
>From: AHARWELL@PANAM1.BITNET
Subject: File 6--Krol's Whole Internet User's Guide (Review #2)
 
The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog: A DICEy Proposition
 
In his first book _The Macintosh Way_, Guy Kawasaki writes about a
principle of good product design he calls DICE. A great product should
be Deep, Indulgent, Complete, and Elegant. In being DICEy, a product
manages to appeal to "both passengers and sailors," delights the
senses, (in the case of a book) informs and teaches, and is easily
accessible. _The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog_, by Ed Krol,
brings forth the DICE ideal onto the printed page in a superbly
designed, well-organized volume.
 
Krol covers all the bases you'd expect in a book on the Internet:
e-mail, ftp, Archie, Usenet, whois and all the rest. But instead of
providing us with a flat explanation of, say, ftp, he gives us a short
background on ftp, then takes us through a standard UNIX-to-UNIX ftp
session. An annotated line-by-line record of the session is included,
and it is extremely clear and easy to understand. He then goes on to
explain what source files and destination files are and how to
interpret the messages produced by ftp. That simple example out of the
way, the author then warns us of some common problems.
 
Following the DICE principle, Krol next walks us through sample ftp
sessions on VMS, MS-DOS, IBM/VM, and Macintosh systems. Each OS's ftp
peculiarities are carefully explained (and it is amusing here to
discern the author's impatience with some of them) and elaborated
upon. This is another example of the "passengers and sailors" appeal
of this book. Most ftp implementations are similar enough that a
demonstration of only one flavor the program would enable the casual
user to get by, but Krol makes no such assumptions about his readers.
VMS is treated in as much detail as MS-DOS or UNIX.
 
It's hard to remember a better-organized guidebook? catalog? handbook?
Chapters begin with an overview of their contents and a brief
cross-reference to other chapters that have related material. Even if
the reader doesn't find exactly what he needs where he first looks, he
should have no trouble locating it. The back of the book has a very
complete index and a series of appendices full of practical
information, such as Internet service providers, an Internet resource
catalog, a glossary, and the acceptable use policy.
 
Beyond all that, Krol addresses important concerns that anyone who
uses the Internet should be aware of, such as privacy and common sense
advice about protecting the Internet. There is a particular page in
Chapter 3 that I wish could be made mandatory reading for any person
requesting an account.
 
For me, a large part of enjoying a book is enjoying looking at the
book itself. Here's where the indulgent part of _The Whole Internet_
comes in. The typography is excellent, and the little illustrations at
the start of each chapter are charming. As in all Nutshell books, a
colophon at the end explains what's what and who did it. Truly, a nice
piece of design: coherent, easy to understand, straightforward.
Everything one could want.
 
The book itself was produced over the net, and Krol says that the
Internet resource catalog was created from information gleaned by
reading listservs, newsgroups, gophering, and doing Archie searches.
This is part of the key to the book's richness and usefulness to such
a variety of readers. It's obvious from the writing style and choice
of content that the author was attuned to the net community and what
is important to its citizens.
 
Anne Harwell
harwell@panam.edu
 
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