Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 17:45:18 EST From: "Rob Slade, Social Convener to the Net" Subject: "UNIX Communications and the Internet" by Anderson et al. BKUNCMIN.RVW 950405 "UNIX Communications and the Internet", Anderson/Costales/Henderson/Pike, 1995, 0-672-30537-2, U$35.00/C$47.95/UK#26.95 %A Bart Anderson %A Bryan Costales %A Harry Henderson %A Tod Pike tpike@pittslug.sug.org %C 201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290 %D 1995 %G 0-672-30537-2 %I SAMS Publishing %O U$35.00/C$47.95/UK#26.95 800-858-7674 75141.2102@compuserve.com %P 817 %T "UNIX Communications and the Internet" Despite the increasing popularity of dial-up IP connections to the Internet, the most common situation is still the dial-up shell account. The most common platform for providers is UNIX, and, although there are many and varied menu- based shells available, at some point the active Internet user is likely going to have to use UNIX, and the UNIX communications tools. The first edition of this book was written seven years ago, when UUCP and the Usenet network (as opposed to the Usenet news application) held a more significant position in global network communications. Internet users may therefore find the non-Usenet material to be a somewhat cursory add-on to the original text. Email addressing examples often give only the UUCP ("bang path") specifications, without adding the more familiar domain name (user@subdomain.domain) format. (Given the size of the work, I was surprised that the explanation lists only "logical" domains, such as .com and .edu, without discussing geographic or more complex structures.) The coverage of Internet particulars is so terse that the explanation of URLs (Universal Resource Locators) describes only HTTP (HyperText Transer protocol, the underlying system for displaying W3 pages). The whole Internet "part" contains only three chapters (twenty-four is really an extension of the UUCP content.) Overall, however, the quality of the material is quite high. There is solid coverage of email, dealing both with concepts and the major mail user agents. The section on Usenet news is also good, though it shows a similar lack of updating: neither trn nor tin are mentioned, and the coverage of "network etiquette" is to be found in the chapter on postnews. UUCP is not dead by any means, and active Internauts, particularly those working at multiple sites on the net, are likely to encounter it at least occasionally. The extreme domination of this book by UUCP applications (readnews and postnews are, by now, specialty applications at best) at the expense of Internet-specific information, will limit the usefulness of this edition. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1995 BKUNCMIN.RVW 950405 ============== Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | Nam tua res agitur, paries Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca | cum proximus ardet. Research into Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca | - For it is your User rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | business, when the wall Security Canada V7K 2G6 | next door catches fire.