BKINTSKM.RVW 940425 Hayden Books 11711 N. College Ave., Suite 140 Carmel, IN 46032-5634 USA 317-573-2500 317-581-3535 800-428-5331 800-428-3804 hayden@hayden.com "Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh", Engst, 1993, 1-56830-064-6, U$29.95 / C$37.995 ace@tidbits.com This is a very good introduction to the Internet; what it is, how it works, and how to behave in relation to it. Regardless of your system, you will find valuable information and resources. Part one, comprising chapters one to four, is a fairly standard introduction to the net. Engst, however, writes in a very friendly and open style. He also gives a lot of coverage to the personal aspects of the Internet, and doesn't limit himself to technologies and applications. Part two starts to get into the major applications, such as email, Usenet news, and others. (A minor, but very useful feature, is "subdirectory" style headers at the top of each page, which make it very easy to find a topic when quickly flipping through the book.) Unfortunately, particularly given the later chapter devoted to email gateways as access to the net, he does not give a lot of coverage of email access to resources, although his coverage of distribution and mailing lists is good. Other areas fall short as well: archie is mentioned only to say that it will be covered later in the book. The reference doesn't say where, and the index is no help. It finally shows up in chapter nine, which is a tutorial on access through UNIX systems. (The promised coverage of email access to archie never does show up.) Part three, ostensibly on making a connection to the Internet, contains some very valuable material. Chapter eight gives a great comparison of Internet access via America Online, Applelink, BIX, Compuserve, Delphi, GEnie, MCI Mail, Prodigy and First Class. Chapter nine, as mentioned, gives details of the UNIX Internet application clients, but also the detailed workings of the applications. Chapters ten and eleven are Mac specific, dealing with particular Mac connection and client software. The only concern I have, is that I suspect Engst minimizes the difficulty of connection setup, particularly over a modem. The appendices are very useful material, collected and well organized. The Internet Resources is perhaps not as large as some other lists, but includes WAIS, ftp, mailing lists, telnet, gopher, and miscellaneous sites. There is also Gene Spafford's annotated newsgroup list, and two lists of Internet service providers. Thoroughly readable, and with analysis which does not flinch from mentioning problems, this book could still use some additional details and a touch more organization. The included Mac software would be a boon to anyone wanting to set up a direct Internet connection for a Mac. The book itself, however, is well worth consideration as a general Internet introduction. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKINTSKM.RVW 940425 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Oct. '94) Springer-Verlag