Internet Info 1997 December/Internet_Info_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1997.iso/isoc/pub/isoc_news/2-3/Rutkowski, Anthony - Book Reviews En Banc.Z/Rutkowski, Anthony - Book Reviews En Banc

Text File | 1994-03-21 | 13KB | 229 lines

Book Reviews En Banc

by A.M.Rutkowski <[e-mail]>


The Internet Navigator by Paul Gilster, John Wiley & Sons, 470
pages, soft cover.  The Internet Navigator is one of the half dozen or
so books that now provide an introduction to the Internet for the
uninitiated - tilted a bit toward the individual dial-up user.  This is a
marketplace that is now exploding around the USA. Gilster does a
good job of packaging together nearly all the basics from who to call to
get connected to how to begin navigating the Internet.  It is perhaps
the most comprehensive and thorough of the books now out there in
dealing with the Internet.  However, there is a certain danger in this -
for the shelf life in the rapidly changing Internet world is very short,
and some significant parts of the book are already out of date.  In
addition, Gilster seems to ignore the entire subject of software, and
the book pretty much presumes that you will be hung off a Unix host
as a dumb terminal.  On balance, this is a really good book for 24
bucks that should keep the Internet market scaling.


The Mac Internet Tour Guide (with disk) by Michael Fraase,
Ventana Press, 288 pages, soft cover.  I think this book is probably
the nicest and most attractively done of all the recent books on how to
get started on the Internet - albeit tailored for Mac users.  What is
particularly valuable are the chapters that take you through obtaining
and configuring the software on your Mac to begin engaging in some
first class Internet cruising.  The diskette included with the book even
facilitates this by providing Fetch, Eudora and Stuffit Expander - the
three key applications needed to easily retrieve files and use a POP3
mail server.  All the nice diagrams and screen snapshots really make
this book interesting, informative and fun to use.  The only downside is
that it's description of the Internet Society is rather inadequate.
However, if you own a Mac and want to begin cruising the Internet,
this is the book to get.

New Books from O'Reilly & Associates

O'Reilly specializes in low cost, very current books for the Internet and
Unix communities that are both informative and useful - a kind of
Internet version of a handbook.  The publishing company has also
been highly innovative on the network - it's Gopher server at
<gopher.ora.com> remains the model for publishers.


!%@::, A Directory of Electronic Mail by Donnalyn Frey and Rick
Adams, 443 pages, soft-cover.  This third edition of the book
remains the bible of electronic messaging today.  One could easily
borrow the American Express slogan with the quip "don't do
messaging without it."  The book introduces you to electronic mail in
all its many forms and flavours, tells you about the networks
throughout the world - Internet, commercial, X.400, Bitnet, Fidonet,
etc. - with an up to date summary of information on each, plus handy
references such as all the world's subdomains.  The wife-husband
team authors are among the most knowledgeable people in the
Internet world. This is one of those publications for which you just
enter a lifetime subscription.


Connecting to the Internet by Susan Estrada, (Buyer's Guide)
170 pages, soft cover.  Susan founded and formerly ran CERFNet
and is one of the people who helped significantly grow the
provisioning side of the Internet.  Her book is a much needed "how to
do it" for anyone interested in getting Internet connectivity and using it
as part of their organization or enterprise.  The sections are simple
and straight-forward: how the Internet works, network performance,
how does someone use the Internet, how to choose providers and
service options.  If you want to know how to connect your
organization, get this book.

Geek of the Week, Internet Talk Radio, Carl Malamud, producer,
audio casette.  One of the more clever new Internet based services to
arise over the past six months is Carl Malamud's Internet Talk Radio.
Carl multicasts these programs on the Internet once a week - picking
an Internet personality affectionately beknighted as a "geek."
Occasionally he branches out to tap just interesting people - like the
Dali Lama.  Because not everyone has the connectivity, time schedule
or the configuration to listen to Carl's show on the network, O'Reilly
has innovatively created a new market by packaging audio cassettes
in little plastic book-like packages bearing the ORAudio label.  The
initial very popular and informative offerings include European
Networking, Internet Security, Information Services.  Highly
recommended for those long drives to work.

Learning the UNIX Operating System by Grace Todino, John
Strang, and Jerry Peek, 92 pages, soft cover.  This 3rd edition is
revised and expanded, and part of nutshell handbook series intended
to get the complete computer novice up and running on a Unix or X-
Windows systems in a one-hour sitting.  Rather than being an
introduction to Unix, it's a "how to use Unix" book. It's also filled with
many of the little details and tricks the regular Unix Weenie knows by
rote and does so regularly that they forget to tell anyone to tell
newcomers.  This is the kind of book you set in front of the keyboard
in every University terminal room.  If you are just beginning to use the
Internet and need to understand how to start using Unix on a remote
host - buy this book.  (It's actually a rather handy reference even if
you've been long using the network.)

Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz, 246 pages, soft cover.  This
book is intended as "a gentle introduction to Perl" - the Practical
Extraction and Report Language of the Unix world.Perl is a powerful
set of tools to manipulate text.  If you're going to spend much time on
a Unix operating system, chances are you will want to learn how to
use Perl.  If you ever have a need for manipulating massive amounts
of text, you will also probably want to learn Perl.  (When my friend Carl
Malamud was challenged by the ITU bureaucracy to turn the 20,000
pages of CCITT standards on tapes of bungled encoded character
sets into a useable on-line anonymous ftp service on a machine called
Bruno, he used Perl scripts to single-handedly get the job done in six
weeks - a task the ITU had estimated at 30 man-years.)

Sendmail by Bryan Costales and others, 792 pages, soft cover.
This book must have set the size record for O'Reilly.  It is industrial
strength coverage for the workhorse agent of the Internet messaging
world known as Sendmail.  This is the province of system
administrators, an invaluable handbook, and a nice companion to
companion books TCP/IP Network Administration, DNS and Bind, and
MH & XMH.  The publisher appropriately enough chose a bat to adorn
the book cover - for this spooky subject that requires an introductory
section entitled "why is sendmail so complex."  This book is not for
your ordinary Internet end user - but it's a godsend for the people who
have to make internetwork messaging systems work - done by the
guys who helped write the code.

High Performance Computing by Kevin Dowd, 371 pages,
softcover.    As O'Reilly notes in it's promotional material, this book is
a departure from their usual handbook orientation.  This book focuses
on the world high performance  computer architectures - a subject
pretty much restricted to the arcane world of the Cray until the
evolution of technology has morphed high-end workstations into Crays
during the past two years. The author makes a credible case for the
necessity for those writing code for the emerging world of the
supermicro to have a pretty solid understanding of how to deal with
these new machines described as "finicky."  Clearly this book is
important - but for a fairly specialized audience.

New Books from Prentice-Hall / SRI International

Internet: Getting Started by April Marine et al., Prentice Hall,  360
pages, soft cover.  This book was done by some of the very
knowledgeable staff that helped run the former Internet Network
Information Center at SRI International and answered a lot of basic
questions over the years.  It is intended as "everyone's first guide to
Internet connectivity."  The first half covers Internet access, while the
second focuses on Internet applications and services once you get
connected.

Internet: Mailing Lists, edited by Edward Hardie and Vivian Neou,
Prentice Hall,  356 pages, soft cover. This book is intended as a
companion to the Getting Started book by the same publisher -
focussing particularly on Internet mailing lists.  It provides the basic
reference information on how different mailing list servers operate as
well as an extensive alphabetical listing and subject index for over 800
lists.  This book is a unique reference that makes it a valuable asset
for any significant Internet user - especially if you intend to use the
Internet for collaborative work with others who share your
professional, institutional, or social interests.  Although the information
may get out of date rather quickly, it is a good first place to check
"what's out there."

New Books from Artech House

A Guide to the TCP/IP Protocol Suite by Floyd Wilder, 313 pages,
hard cover.  Artech's books are typically directed at a technical
audience, and this guide is no exception.  It focuses specifically on the
TCP/IP protocol suite and does a very comprehensive and credible
job in providing an introduction to these protocols.  Going further than
just walking through the standards, Wilder provides network context
and shows how the different protocols fit together and provide
internetworking functions and services.  I'd recommend this book as
the best single reference or tutorial book on the subject.

Unix Internetworking by Uday Pabrai, 197 pages, hard cover.  In
some ways, this book is a companion to the TCP/IP guide that is also
part of this series.  It provides good, comprehensive overviews of the
Unix operating system in its various flavors, how networking and
client-server applications are integrated into the system, and then
focuses on specific applications and problem areas like NFS, NIS,
DNS, X-windows, and security.  One of its more valuable and unique
features is the last section of the book on internetworking and
integration with other popular network operating systems including
DEC, Novell, Appletalk, and managing these integrated environments
using SNMP.  This is a very good handbook and tutorial on real-world
networking today for anyone involved at network engineering or
administrative levels.

Secure Data Networking by Michael Purser, 241 pages, hard
cover.  In a world of vast open metanetworks, the subject of network
security is being catapulted into the networking consciousness almost
as much as safe sex in a world of AIDS.  This book on secure data
networking provides a broad introduction to the subject that spans
both the TCP/IP and OSI worlds.  It covers various methods of attack
as well as the security management methods for combatting those
attacks.  The only down sides of the book are its tendency to get too
involved in the underlying mathmatics of cryptography and security in
some places, as well as its strong skew in the ISO-OSI direction when
the real-world marketplace is presently strongly skewing toward
TCP/IP implementations.

Online

No book review in the Internetworking world today would be complete
without mentioning the incredible new service that has become
available to Mosaic users of the World Wide Web (www) courtesy of
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).  NCSA
has recently ported the Mosaic client to Mac and now PC Windows
platforms to provide ubiquitous access to what was formerly available
only for Unix workstations.  Mosaic is without a doubt the most
elegant, attractive, and intuitive distributed knowledge browser ever
put together.  It seamlessly integrates virtually every platform and
application into one graphic-oriented hypertext interface.

What's New With NCSA Mosaic and the Internet Resources Meta-
Index by the NCSA Software Development Group staff, on-line.
These never ending "books" are updated daily and providing hypertext
links to Web servers around the world.  They are amusingly provided
with the quip "you may wish the following to keep track of the
evolution of cyberspace and to find information on the Internet."  The
What's New publication is organized by knowledge browsing service
(WWW, WAIS, Gopher, plus an aided Telnet), then by index
categories (searchable, subject, server, and miscellaneous), then by
resources and disciplines.  Also included is an Experimental Graphical
MetaMap that shows browser relationships and linkages.  For a
spectacular journey into what the Internet is and where it is headed
connect to this book!