Date: Fri, 09 Dec 1994 15:30:49 EST From: "Rob Slade, Social Convener to the Net" Subject: "Canadian Internet Handbook" by Carroll/Broadhead BKCANINT.RVW 941020 %A Jim Carroll %A Rick Broadhead %C Scarborough, Ontario %D 1994 %G 0-13-304395-9 %I Prentice Hall Canada %O C$16.95 800-567-3800 416-293-3621 %P 415 %T "Canadian Internet Handbook" "Canadian Internet Handbook", Carroll/Broadhead, 1994, 0-13-304395-9, C$16.95 jcarroll@jacc.com handbook@vm1.yorku.ca handbook@uunet.ca >From Alexander Graham Bell to Marshall McLuhan to X.25, Canadians have been in the forefront of communications technology. With that background, one could hope for a more disciplined and focussed effort in a Canadian Internet handbook. Chapters one through four are editorial and opinion pieces on the Internet, Canadian corporate use of the net, net structure and polity in Canada, and Internet technical addressing. The "technical" material betrays little familiarity with the concepts but the business and organizational pieces could be helpful to companies as first contacts on their own research into the net. The next four chapters give a simplistic introduction to the major Internet applications. Users looking for a tutorial should be advised that there are a number of errors and shortcomings. Chapter nine reprises some of chapter four in describing the various types of Internet access. This material is expanded somewhat, but not sufficiently to provide any assistance in obtaining a dedicated IP connection. (Appendix B does contain forms and some instruction for parts of the process.) Appendix A is the heart of the book, a set of lists of Canadian, or related, Internet access providers, gophers, OPACs, World Wide Web sites, and other miscellaneous resources. Much of the content is less "Canadian" than one might think: the advent of the archie application in Canada is mentioned only in passing and a "Directory of archie ... servers in Canada" in fact lists American servers. (A French-speaking server in Quebec is noted in the introduction. This server will, in fact, accept regular archie commands.) The collection of Canadian Internet information is interesting and likely quite useful, in some instances. The book as a whole, though, should probably have been divided into booklets targetted at more defined audiences. (This would have been of benefit physically, as well: the present thin page and fat book format makes it awkward to read.) copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKCANINT.RVW 941020 ====================== 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" 0-387-94311-0/3-540-94311-0