Finding it on the Internet - 2 Reviews

COMPUTER BOOK REVIEW  

485 words

Title: Finding It on the Internet;  Paul Gilster; 
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0-471-03857-1; 
paperback, 322 pages, US$19.95, CAN$25.95

Title: Instant Internet Access: Multimedia Edition; 
Kris Jamsa and Allen Wyatt; Jamsa Press; 
ISBN 1-884133-06-1; CD-ROM plus illustrated guide; 
US$49.95, CAN$64.95;

Reviewer:  A. T. Connellan, "It's all in the search. With 
these two you can't get lost." 

It's all in the search, and here are a pair of 
up-to-the-second trackers.


Obsolescence in nanoseconds seems to be the 
defining characteristic of the fast-moving Information 
Superhighway. It's difficult to find current help, or 
books about the Internet. Here, however, are two 
sources that are up-to-the-second. 

Finding it on the Internet is the follow-up to Paul Gilsters 
highly regarded earlier book, the Internet Navigator, 
the one that did so much to furnish its readers with a 
broad explanation of the Internet and its use. 

To the author, the Internet is a work in progress, 
lacking definitive order and seemingly designed 
to confuse the unwary. There are however an array 
of search engines with unusual names like archie, 
gopher, veronica, swais, jughead, world wide web, 
mosaic, and hytelnet. This new book is an explication 
of these tools for accurately and quickly simplifying 
what is otherwise a complicated exercise. 

Paul Gilster writes well, and in clear concise language 
he steps the reader through the essential knowledge 
segments on the way to understanding. His work is 
supported by "Hints" in shaded boxes, well reproduced 
screens, a glossary, a detailed index, and best of all 
a list of Common Internet Search Commands printed 
inside the front and back covers. 

Equally up to the task is the CD-ROM edition of Allen L. 
Wyatt's Success with Internet, now combined with Kris 
Jamsa's [say it as in James not jam] Yellow and White 
Pages to create an interactive Internet tutor titled Instant 
Internet Access. It requires a double-speed CD-ROM 
player and about 6.5 megabytes of your hard disk, but 
in action it's dazzling. 
                             
Wyatt's paperback version is notable for its parallel 
chapters for Mac, DOS, and UNIX users. It has extensive 
appendixes, index, and a handy digest tucked inside the 
back cover with the essential information for cruising the 
Internet. It is a book with an astonishing amount of 
information, served up in a highly readable fashion.

All this transported well onto CD-ROM to be joined by 
Jamsa's Yellow and White Pages with a series of icons 
that, with a touch of a mouse, will instantly bring up audio 
or audio/visual explanations and instructions on an infinite 
variety of subjects. A Mac version is said to be in the works. 

A major compliment is a selection of 19 Shareware 
programs included on the disk. When utilized, those 
frustrating, dead-end hunts for the jewels of the Information 
Superhighway are a thing of the past. 

Whether books on disk will save trees and be the wave 
of the future is still open to debate. It will certainly speed 
up the learning process. Think of it, the Jamsa Yellow 
pages can take us to more than two and a half million 
documents with 75,000 being added each day, in just 
two clicks of a mouse. 

It's all in the search. With these two you can't get lost.