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BKNTTLDC.RVW   980621

"Newton's Telecom Dictionary", Harry Newton, 1998, U$29.95,
1-57820-008-3
%A   Harry Newton harrynewton@mcimail.com harry_newton@email.msn.com
%C   12 West 21 Street, New York, NY 10010
%D   1998
%G   1-57820-008-3
%I   Flatiron Publishing, Inc.
%O   U$29.95 212-691-8215 800-LIBRARY fax 212-691-1191
%P   840 p.
%T   "Newton's Telecom Dictionary", 14th Edition

The very beginning of the introduction to this book is a call for
help, and a promise to mention you if you do help out.  Since I last
reviewed the dictionary, a couple of editions back, I have heard from
Newton, about people who didn't help him; from people who wanted to
help Newton; from Newton, wanting me to help him; and from people who
wanted my advice on whether they should help Newton.  Now, some of
these people may never have passed along the help to Newton, but I
find it odd that *none* of them got mentioned in the acknowledgements
this time around.  Which is really only to say that if you pass along
some help and advice it will be for the warm feeling of contributing
to the project, and not for fame or glory.

And Newton can use the help, because this is a massive work.  There
are lots and lots of telecommunications terms, with a fair
preponderance of telephony and internet listings.  Computer jargon
gets a fair amount of space, with MS-DOS related material getting the
lion's share.  BOB refers to the late, unlamented, and Microsoft-
wishes-it-could-be-forgotten product.  "Virus" is in there, and it
isn't bad.  (On the other hand, it hasn't gotten any better over the
last two editions.)  Management is remembered with the "Osborne
Effect" and "Seagull Manager", and the description of "Digital Cash"
is written by someone with a firm grasp of reality.  The numeric
entries for 1791 through 1996 constitute a quick history of
telecommunications.  The entry for "Call Waiting" refers to the
trouble it may give to modems and mentions both the *70 command and
the setting of the S10 register. Then there is telecommunications
trivia, such as the part played by radio in the saving of the Eiffel
Tower, the contribution of the telephone to the English language, and
reflections on the Titanic disaster and telecom-related biographies. 
(You can even learn some erstwhile English terms.)  There are useful
tables, even within the text such as the listing of North American
Area Codes.  (Apparently, however, I live in an unimportant area. 
Other listings in provinces and states with multiple codes list the
major cities involved: 604 is "British Columbia, Canada" and 250 is
just "British Columbia.")

Newton's serious attempt to include more material related to the
Internet is evident, but so is a lack of familiarity with the topic. 
The double backslash (\\) is mentioned as a remote network object, and
will be recognized as such by the Windows NT crowd, but the use of the
double forward slash (//) for the same concept will be more familiar
to the Internet crowd, as will the use of the tilde (~) as the UNIX
shortcut for "home directory for this account," and neither of them
get mentioned as such.  Information on the "cookies" associated with
World Wide Web browsing is reasonably good, although the Microsoft
party line on the topic gets a lot of space.  Ironically, the book
then goes on to give you storage information for cookies that is
applicable only to the Netscape browser.

The listings are quite current, including items such as "SATAN",
"RimmJob", "cookie" (with the associated controversy) and even "push"
(without the controversy).  However, a number of recent concerns, such
as the "ping of death," "teardrop attack," and the security weakness
in Outlook 98 are not mentioned.  The reader will also find some
esoteric technical entries, like "Hydrogen Loss" and "Zener Diode".

While reviewing the book, I left it at a reception desk for fifteen
minutes.  That was long enough for the staffer at the desk to inform
me, on my return, that the author was a pretty funny guy.  Quite true. 
A number of the definitions are fairly lighthearted, and Newton isn't
afraid to throw in subjective comments.  A number of listings are
*completely* off the wall.  What does "Apocalypse, Four Horsemen of"
have to do with communications?  Or "Apologize", or "FORD" for that
matter?  Apparently if you are a friend or relative of Newton, there
is grave danger that you will end up listed in here.  Some of the
humorous content does have a closer technical connection, like
"Bogon", "Get a Life", and "Psychic ANI".

The book is not without flaws.  "Skunkworks" owes its origins to Li'l
Abner, not a lack of soap.  The entry for "Millenium (sic) Bug" talks
only about COBOL, and apparently hasn't been updated since the
beginning of 1996.  ("2000" is a bit more realistic.  Neither refers
to the other.)  And I can cut eight characters out of your "Fox
Message."  I was surprised not to see any entries for Mailstorm, REXX,
or cascaded virtual circuit.  "Freeware" is listed (and correct), but
shareware and public domain share the same confused definition. 
(Indeed, the definition of "Sysop" confuses freeware and public domain
software.)  "Granularity" still doesn't understand that there is a
valid technical use of the term, and "BLAST" does not note that it is
a proprietary technology.  (I *am* willing to forgive a lot to a
dictionary that gets "Hacker" right, but Newton loses points by
misusing the term under the entry for "SATAN.")  Some of the errors
noted in the twelfth edition have been corrected, but most have not.

While extensive, the work is neither complete nor exhaustive.  The
book could use some discipline, not in excluding the humour, but in
including more extensive, or more accurate, definitions in places. 
Still, regardless of shortcomings, this is easily one of the two best
telecommunications dictionaries available today, and, for breadth of
scope, probably *the* best.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997, 1998   BKNTTLDC.RVW   980621

-- 
======================
rslade@vcn.bc.ca     rslade@sprint.ca     slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca
virus, book info at http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/rms.html
Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses, 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)