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BKCAINUH.RVW   990123

"1999 Canadian Internet New User's Handbook", Jim Carroll/Rick
Broadhead, 1998, 0-13-974957-8, C$16.95
%A   Jim Carroll jcarroll@jimcarroll.com www.jimcarroll.com
%A   Rick Broadhead rickb@sympatico.ca www.rickbroadhead.com
%C   Scarborough, Ontario
%D   1998
%G   0-13-974957-8
%I   Prentice Hall Canada
%O   C$16.95 800-576-3800 416-293-3621 www.phcanada.com
%P   246 p.
%T   "1999 Canadian Internet New User's Handbook"

As rabidly and chauvinistically patriotic as I am, I find it difficult
to recommend this book.

Chapter one is basically a sales pitch for the net, although, at the
same time, it suggests that media hype has distorted perceptions of
the Internet.  The material does not address specific deceptions but
does mention a few minor examples of how the net can be used.  The
obligatory list of Web sites is given in chapter two.  Rather oddly,
the specific URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are not given in the
individual writeups (and, in one case, seem to have been deliberately
expunged from screen shots) although they are collected at the end of
the chapter.  Some items that *do* have their URLs included are the
tips, but a number of those in this chapter are not Canadian.  Despite
the promise of the title, there is no real explanation of the net in
chapter three, which simply contains a few more examples of things you
can do (if you know how) as a kind of addition to chapter one. 
Chapter four seems to make the same commitment, but the most telling
statement is the first of the "Understanding the Internet in 10 Easy
Steps" at the end: "You do not need to know how the Internet works
behind the scenes in order to use it."  There is a minor exposition on
the hierarchical naming convention of the Domain Name Service (DNS),
but that is about it.

Chapter five talks about getting connected to the net, but only really
says to buy the right (unspecified) hardware and the right
(unspecified) service.  The actual connection is left as an exercise
to the reader.  (There is a list of Web sites of national service
providers that can be very helpful--if you are already on the net and
don't need it.)  The Web, email, and news are introduced in chapter
six--but only barely.  I am glad to see that the issue of etiquette
gets some space in regard to email and news, although the points are
brief and relatively simple, and mailing list etiquette is not dealt
with at all.  Searching the Web is generally covered very badly in
most books: Carroll and Broadhead at least note the difference between
directories and search engines in chapter seven.  Building a Web site
is a serious undertaking, and chapter eight's coverage only scratches
the surface.  Chapter nine concludes with a quick precis of the book,
and yet another iteration of chapter one (a few more things you can do
on the net).

Even as a quick starting guide to the net, this book does not have
anywhere near the basic information of, say, "Zen and the Art of the
Internet" (cf. BKZENINT.RVW), let alone the depth of understanding
that the slightly longer "Internet Book" (cf. BKINTBOK.RVW) is able to
provide.  As for Canadian material, while there are a number of
Canadian sites listed by way of example, the CRTC might have
difficulty in allowing this as CanCon.

I did not want to mention the self-promotional tone of the book, since
to do so is to sail dangerously close to making an ad hominem attack. 
However, the fact that the book opens with eight pages of advertising
for the authors, and closes with seven more, is one of the lesser
examples.  The stream of overinflated quotes of congratulatory hype
(with no apparent relation to the topic at hand) and claims to
specialist expertise seemingly solely on the basis that one is famous
is extremely annoying, and, well, not very Canadian.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999   BKCAINUH.RVW   990123

-- 
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