Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/book.reviews/navigating.internet-gibbs

Text File | 1995-01-01 | 6KB | 107 lines

Date: Thu, 03 Feb 1994 05:41:50 MDT
From: Rob Slade <[e-mail]>
Subject: Book Review: "Navigating the Internet" by Gibbs/Smith


This happens to be (not *entirely* by my own choice :-) the textbook
to be used in two upcoming seminars that I will be giving.  If you are
in the area of Vancouver, BC on Feb. 19th and Feb. 24, 25th, you might
contact Cyberstore at 604-526-3373 or [e-mail].  They are
the ones organizing the seminars.  (The one day course is the first
day of the two day seminar.)

BKNAVINT.RVW   940110

Prentice Hall/SAMS Publishing
11711 N. College Avenue, Suite 140
Carmel, IN 46032
1-800-428-5331  Fax: [phone]
"Navigating the Internet", Gibbs/Smith, 0-672-30362-0, U$24.95/C$31.95
[e-mail]  [e-mail] [e-mail]

With this title, one would expect an emphasis less on introduction and
more on the search tools of the Internet.  This is not the case; what
we have here, is, again, another introductory guide to the Internet.
The book leans quite heavily on the "Internet as ocean" metaphor in
the first chapter, but thereafter abandons it.

The choice and organization of individual chapters is reasonable, but
tends to be application specific rather than function specific.  The
discussion of LISTSERV mailing lists gets a chapter of its own rather
than being combined with either email, which is how you use them, or
Usenet news, to deal generically with conferencing or discussion type
activities.  The organization within chapters is somewhat
discontinuous, with topics being discussed in two or three places
within a chapter, but most chapters are short enough that this should
not be a problem.  Coverage is not exhaustive; the topic on finding
people does not list the extremely useful MIT "usenet-addresses" mail
server; but should be enough to get a novice started.

The tone is very light, at times flippant.  (The computer humour
literate will immediately recognize a description of a FORTRAN specific
ftp site as coming from the "Rambo Guide to Real Programmers".)  This
should not prove too much of a problem as most of the asides are
clearly that, and could not be mistaken for directions.  Indeed, one
story by Mark Gibbs about carelessly reading a message and confusing
"resent" (as in taking offense) for "re-sent" (as in forwarding of a
message) is a fine object lesson in the importance of thoughtful
reading of email.  (I am glad to see the extended coverage given to
network etiquette.)

One bad fault is in the proofreading, confusing ".ed" for ".edu" as
the educational domain, and calling the "rn" newsreader "nr".  The
UNIX bias is even more deeply embedded than with Krol (cf. BKKROL.RVW)
or Dern (cf.  BKTIGFNU.RVW) and assumes that everyone is on a UNIX
system with Elm and rn.  Strangely, though, there seems to be an
underlying BITNET bias as well.  One example is the insistence that
domain names can be shortened as long as a unique version remains.  In
the Internet this would very much depend upon the (possibly multiple)
domain name servers between the user and the target system.  In
BITNET, however, all sites have unique machine names, and so the
.BITNET domain can be dropped.  The LISTSERV program discussed is also
limited to the BITNET version, with no discussion of the general
differences between it and the Internet version, and no mention of the
JANET (UK) MAILBASE system.  Finally, there seems to be an odd
confusion between BITNET and Usenet, referring to BITNET "newsgroups"
and to Usenet as if it were an actual network.

Nonetheless, the book is a handy introduction.  Appendix B is a
command reference for archie, elm, ftp, gopher, LISTSERVE, rn, telnet,
WAIS and World Wide Web (WWW).  There is also a tear-out reference
card for common mail gateways, ftp, telnet and gopher.

Appendix E, the Internet Navigator's Gazetteer, is a resource guide.
It is a nice counterpoint to Krol's Catalogue.  Where Krol goes
overboard on WAIS, WWW and gopher, this Gazetteer is almost
exclusively mailing lists (most of them BITNET).  Many are outdated.
The listings are by no means complete.  A complete list, of course,
would be an enormous task, and one which would be out of date before
it ever saw print.  Nevertheless, in my own searching I could find no
entries for computer communications, data communications, or telecomm-
unications, nor did I find any for computer security.  I looked in vain
for a general listing on ecology, although I did find an ecology list
under another topic.  Part of the difficulty lies in the practice of
major headings with subdivisions.  The subheads can go on for pages,
and the major topics are not "carried forward" to following pages.

(I found a subheading of "Viruses" under the "Computer" topic.  I
noted two listings for VIRUS-L one of which had an obsolete address,
and VALERT-L list, a list I'd never heard of which didn't seem to have
much to do with the topic, three listings for the cert.org ftp site,
and one for the VTC site at the University of Hamburg.  And there, at
the end of the subsection on Page 350, is your humble scribe's Quick
Reference Antiviral Review Chart.  Fame!)

A substantial number of people will have access through UNIX systems,
and will have elm and rn available.  Even for those who do not, this
work is a good guide.  The errors are not major, and the included
resources may be a very handy start.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994   BKNAVINT.RVW   940110


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DECUS Symposium '94, Vancouver, BC, Mar 1-3, 1994, contact: [e-mail]