© 1995 Lawrence I. Charters
Washington Apple Pi Journal, Vol. 17, no. 2, March-April 1995 pp. 52-55.
Knowledge is power,” according to an ancient cliche that, for a change, is also accurate. And everyone knows that the way to knowledge in the immediate future is through the Internet, the “National Information Infrastructure” (Vice President Al Gore), the “Information Superhighway” (virtually every magazine and newspaper in the country), the “Cy Fi Way” (Washington Post Fast Forward magazine). All these even sound powerful, or at least mysterious, but the truth is: the Internet is just a bunch of computers linked together, without a plan, without an index, without a map, and frequently without a purpose. Unless you have unlimited time and wealth, you can’t expect to discover anything useful on the Internet unless you have a passionate interest in reading.
A good place to start is the O’Reilly Nutshell series. O’Reilly is well known, even revered, in the UNIX world for their books, but relatively unknown in the Mac world. This is a shame; their books are not only superbly written, but superbly edited, and the company has a touch of whimsy that fits perfectly into the Macintosh culture.
Virtually all their book covers, for example, have black and white illustrations, frequently of animals, designed to look like 19th century lithographs. The illustrations give their books a distinctive “look” that is both more professional than, say, the inane Dummies series from IDG and, simultaneously, off-the-wall. If you order direct, the box containing your books will be sealed with custom-made clear plastic tape illustrated with many of the animals seen on the book covers-a nice touch. Plus, you’ll often get some extra “goodie,” such as a paper animal mask that says on the back, “Your order has been pawed by [name of employee].” Thank you, Amber; my daughter loved the mask.
World Wide Web
Once you get beyond the packing material, you can feast on authoritative answers to puzzling questions and problems, written in clear English that is neither “dumbed-down” nor numbing gray text. The Mosaic Handbook for the Macintosh, by Dale Dougherty and Richard Koman, is an almost perfect beginner’s guide to the Internet, offering up the attractions and ease of use of the World Wide Web (WWW) through the first “killer application,” Mosaic. It even comes with a copy of Spyglass’ Enhanced NCSA Mosaic, though the book’s subject is applicable to most Web browsers, including Netscape and Mac Web.
The combination of book, software and subject make The Mosaic Handbook an attractive combination. Boot up the supplied software and you are greeted with a Mosaic Home Page that runs off your local hard disk; no live Internet connection is required. This Home Page allows you to explore many subjects covered in the book at your leisure, without spending a dime on an Internet connection. The book even covers the basics of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) so you can create, and test, your own custom Home Page, right in the comfort of your own hard disk.
If you have a live Internet connection, the supplied Home Page links you directly to GNN, the Global NetworkNavigator, a sophisticated Internet project launched by O’Reilly to serve as a global Internet information center. GNN has links to popular World Wide Web sites, has errata for O’Reilly publications, has advertisements for various businesses – in short, it is the perfect place for a new Internet user to land and explore.
There are chapters on how the Internet works, how WWW was created, and chapters on Mosaic ”helper” applications (programs that Mosaic can launch to handle special kinds of information, such as sound or video clips). There is fairly detailed documentation on Spyglass’ Enhanced Mosaic; if there are lapses, they are usually due to lapses in the software more than the documentation.
There are, additionally, some interviews, and discussions of mailing lists, gophers, and other strange denizens of the Internet. There is even a decent index, and nice glossary. About the only thing not covered is how to get an Internet connection.
Buying Connections
Connecting to the Internet: An O’Reilly Buyer’s Guide, by Susan Estrada, is well described by the title. Do you want to be on the Information Superhighway? Do you want to play with Mosaic? Do you know how to do this? Estrada’s guide is filled with tips on what kind of connections to look for (there are many choices), and devotes many pages to reviewing, by name, many Internet providers.
Published in 1993, the list of providers, and their services and costs, is technically out of date. Worse, it is largely based on information freely available — on the Internet. So, if you are already on the Internet and want to go shopping for an Internet ~ provider, you probably don’t need this book. And if you appreciate the irony of that last sentence, you’ll also appreciate the value of Estrada’s listing: even if some details have changed, she still provides a priceless list of names, phone numbers, E-mail addresses and contact points for informed shopping.
She also devotes time to such matters as how the Internet works, how these workings influence different kinds of connections, and which type of connection might be best for your use. She has prepared a nice checklist for compar.ing service providers, and offers guidance on how to measure their services and performance. Separate chapters are devoted to the very different criteria involved in “Selecting Dial up Connections” (the Internet via modem) and “Selecting Dedicated Line Connections” (the Internet via connection to your local area network).
Covering exactly what equipment to buy and how to set it up for Internet access is beyond the scope of the book – which is a blessing. There is virtually no Apple or Macintosh-specific information in the book and, given the great variety of Internet connections possible with a Mac (direct-connect TCP/IP, SLIP, PPP, AppleTalk Remote Access, etc.), such matters are best left to other books. But Estrada does cover the basics, and even manages to give some idea of the costs associated with different components and options.
Not for the Novice
What if you already have an Internet connection, and have mastered the wonders of Mosaic? Managing Internet Information Services, by (deep breath) Cricket Liu, Jerry Peek, Russ Jones, Bryan Buus and Adrian Nye, covers the next step. As the name suggests, this is a “how to” manual of setting up Internet sites for gopher, WWW, ftp, mailing lists, and other popular means of providing information. Aimed at the technically sophisticated, the book is intended for either UNIX system administrators or a group the author calls “data librarians.” A data librarian is the person who populates an information service with information, setting up menus and files for gopher, creating Web pages for Mosaic, setting up user lists for mailing lists, or similar tasks. Such a person should have some familiarity with UNIX, say the authors, (though there are many Mac programs for providing these services that require no such knowledge). This doesn’t mean the book doesn’t have value to Mac users; learning how it is done on a UNIX machine is a must if you want an Internet site to be useful to the rest of the planet since UNIX is essentially an Internet “standard.”
There are some basic chapters of use to almost anyone, such as those describing Internet services, an overview of the World Wide Web, an overview of mailing lists, and separate chapters on legal issues and intellectual property rights. An excellent chapter on authoring for the World Wide Web (using Hyper Text Markup Language) is bolstered by a nice appendix on HTML tags. Fledgling service providers should also find the chapters on preparing information for ftp archives and gopher servers relatively easy going as well.
Setting up the gopher or web server, however, is another matter. Much of the book is hard-core, and requires not only knowledge ofUNIX but an understanding of the fundamental principles of operating systems and networking, and a sound knowledge of programming. Put another way, virtually anyone can read this book, but understanding all of it will not come without many hours spent sweating and suffering over a UNIX machine. This is not a fault of the book, but of the subject.
If you can accept less than full understanding, the book is still of great value, even if you never intend to get familiar with UNIX. For those contemplating creating, or fully exploiting, Internet services, you’ll suffer quite a bit more if you don’t read the book. The authors provide many examples of what happens if things are not done correctly, and this knowledge is sobering. Also, often intimidating; I’ve postponed several mad schemes regarding the Internet until I can find someone else to do them for me. Sadly, the book offers little help in “searching for naive volunteers.”
I also liked the cute bobacs frolicking on the cover.
Bugs and Errors
All three books probably have some errors, but they weren’t significant enough to attract my attention. The indices, however, are another matter. While the first two books have barely adequate indexing, the last – and most complex -volume needs a far more detailed index, since few individuals are willing to read all 600+ pages cover to cover. Granted, the index plus the table of contents does allow you to quickly reach most information, but this is timeconsuming and awkward, frequently resulting in a loss of concentration.
Not as awkward or irritating, however, as the advertising. Yes, many other publishers do it, too, but the practice of filling the last pages of a book with advertising, coupons, postcards, Rolodex cards and other nonsense greatly diminishes the value of an index. There are six pages separating the back cover from the index in Connecting to the Internet, twenty-seven pages in The Mosaic Handbook, and sixteen pages in Managing Internet Information Services. The correct number, of course, should be “zero.”
For Further Information
As you might expect, O’Reilly is exceptionally well connected to the world of computers. In preparing this review, current prices of the books were pulled directly off O’Reilly’s computers, via the Internet, as were the thumbnail pictures of the book covers. If you have an Internet connection that supports Mosaic, try: http://gnn.com/ora/
or use a gopher client to connect to: gopher.ora.com
or use anonymous FTP to get material from: ftp.ora.com
For those lacking direct Internet access, try E-mail. General questions about O’Reilly publications should be sent to nuts@ora.com; technical questions should be directed to bookquestions@ora.com; you can order books by sending a message to order@ora.com; and you can ask to be added to their mailing list, to receive their next catalog, by writing to catalog@ora.com.
Dale Dougherty and Richard Koman, The Mosaic Handbook for the Macintosh. O’Reilly & Associates, 1994. xxiv, 171 pp. ISBN 1-56592-096-1. $29.95
Susan Estrada, Connecting to the Internet: An O’Reilly Buyer’s Guide. O’Reilly & Associates, 1993. xviii, 170 pp. ISBN 1-56592-061-9. $15.95
Cricket Liu, Jerry Peek, Russ Jones, Bryan Buus and Adrian Nye, Managing Internet Information Services. O’Reilly & Associates, 1994. xxxvi, 630 pp. ISBN 1-56592-062-7. $29.95