Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 16:06:10 EST From: "Rob Slade, Social Convener to the Net" Subject: "Internet Yellow Pages" by Hahn/Stout BKINTYLP.RVW 950311 "The Internet Yellow Pages", Hahn/Stout, 1995, 0-07-882098-7, U$29.95 %A Harley Hahn %A Rick Stout rick@crash.cts.com %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 %C 2600 Tenth St., Berkeley, CA 94710 %D 1995 %G 0-07-882098-7 %I Osborne McGraw-Hill %O U$29.95 800-227-0900 1-800-2-MCGRAW FAX: 1-717-794-2080 %O lkissing@osborne.mhs.compuserve.com %P 812 %T "The Internet Yellow Pages" An Internet "Yellow Pages" is no less ambitious a project than a "White Pages," probably more so. The pace of change on the Internet is rapid, and ill-suited to the long lead times of book publishing. In addition, the volume and range of information on the net is staggering. Nevertheless, even the very brief "catalogues" found in introductory guides tend to be a lot of fun and serendipitously useful. This is fun. The "coke servers" are here, addresses for famous people, programming resources, UFO theorists, software utilities, government information and all the various and varied topics of the net. There are cartoons and graphics included; about two per page; which seem to take the place of the advertising in a regular yellow pages directory. (The authors are promoting "The Internet Complete Reference" (cf BKINCORF.RVW) less agressively in this edition.) This is useful. For Internet resource people, this is a lot faster than "grep"ing the active-groups and list-of-lists files when the persistent "What can you do on the Internet?" question pops up. The closest competition, "New Riders' Official Internet Yellow Pages" (cf BKNRYLPG.RVW) is more formal but actually contains fewer listings, and is not as likely to find information on what you are looking for. This needs work. The entries lean heavily on gopher entries and are light on mailing lists. The large format and 800 pages of listings look impressive until you see the amount of white space and number of cartoons. (The white space ("yellow" space?) *does* make the layout attractive and easy to read.) The subject categories could stand some input from a "real world" document such as a real yellow pages directory or the Sears list of subject headings. The index is vital, and needs the most work of all in order to make this a major reference work. The authors solicit comments and entries to catalog@rain.org. Certainly, any major net entity would be well advised to send them a note. Commercial information providers might even want to take out an ad to replace some of those cartoons. (If so, I want a cut.) copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994, 1995 BKINTYLP.RVW 950311 ====================== 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" (Europe: ertel@springer.de)