BKALINML.RVW   970402

"All About Internet Mail", Lee David Jaffe, 1997, 1-882208-20-X,
U$34.00
%A   Lee David Jaffe
%C   2137 Oregon St., Berkeley, CA   94705
%D   1997
%G   1-882208-20-X
%I   Library Solutions Institute and Press
%O   U$34.00 510-841-2933 510-841-2636 fax: 510-841-2926 
%O   charlotte@library-solutions.com http://www.library-solutions.com
%P   150
%T   "All About Internet Mail"

For the beginner, this book does provide an introduction to email (and
also Usenet news)--but not much more.  There are a wide variety of
topics addressed, including the creation of aliases, the use of
prepared text in messages, and problems you might encounter using
telnet to connect to your home system.  The details of how to use
those features are largely absent.  Or, since more than twenty pages
of chapter two are devoted to a reprinting of help screens from a
variety of programs, the details are not discussed where it would be
most helpful, in the discussion of the functions, themselves. 
Basically, this tells the reader, "This can be done, if you can figure
out how by yourself."

The introduction suggests that the book has many tips for the
experienced user, as well.  Speaking as an experienced user, I would
say that the book fails to deliver.  There are few uses mentioned
beyond the most basic.  Attachments are mentioned (without much
warning about the need for similarity of mail agents), but not
unencoding.  Listserv file retrieval is mentioned, but not the more
general mail servers such as MIT's RTFM or ftp-by-mail.  (There are
also numerous errors which are unimportant to use but technically
annoying: Usenet is defined incorrectly, the relation between high-
speed modems and SLIP is wrong, and, I'm sorry to say, "help" is not a
standard UNIX command.)

The listing of LISTSERV and Listproc commands is a potentially helpful
reference which is seldom included.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997   BKALINML.RVW   970402