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VDNIATTJ.RVW   980809

"Navigating the Internet", Tom Sensabaugh, 1995, 1-57305-080-6,
U$695.00
%A   Tom Sensabaugh
%C   Room 3A184, 8 Corporate Place, Piscataway, NJ   08854
%D   1995
%G   1-57305-080-6
%I   Bellcore
%O   U$695.00 fax: 908-336-2559 mgordon2@notes.cc.bellcore.com
%P   102 min., 3 tapes, 154 p.
%T   "Navigating the Internet: A Trip Through the Jungle"

The production values, animation, and "cute" gimmicks indicate that
this series, unlike the bulk of the products from Bellcore, is aimed
at the general public.  Aside from the opening, and the jungle theme
background for the foils, this is the standard talking head with
overheads.  (This particular talking head differs from others in the
Bellcore line in that he uses a binder of notes to remind him of his
script instead of flipping through a presentation program onscreen.
This turns out to be much less annoying to the viewer.)  Each tape
contains two of the six divisions from the study guide provided, but
there is no particular division of the topics on the tape.

Tape one includes a general introduction to the Internet, and a review
of electronic mail.  The introduction has some history, a mention of
the TCP/IP protocol suite, a reasonable description of routing, and
some explanation of both IP and domain name addressing.  Not all of
the material is complete: when the package says that it will give us
the anatomy of a domain name address it really only provides the
standard list of com, edu, gov, net, mil, and org top level domains.
The description of email does give some background of uses and
functions, as well as some header analysis, but never touches on how
to use mail.

Tape two looks at information retrieval (telnet and ftp) and searching
(archie, gopher, and WAIS) tools.  The tools used are all text based
and accessed (except in the case of ftp) via telnet.  There are
several examples in the study guide (although fewer on the tape), but
each is the same as those done before, so no new functions are
addressed in each successive run.

Tape three touches on the World Wide Web and getting a connection to
the net.  The Web information is solid, and contains more background
than is the case with most Internet videos.  The dissection of a URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) has a complete explanation of the various
parts and types.  Examples are run on Mosaic, with a fairly standard
GUI (Graphical User Interface) presentation.  The discussion of
getting connected is fairly generic, and simply reviews the different
options.

As might be expected, this package is more technical than those
provided by other publishers.  The material is valid, although rather
limited when it comes to actual use of, and experience on, the net.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   VDNIATTJ.RVW   980809