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The Mac Internet Tour Guide



Author: Gary Baker
Date: January, 1994
Keywords: book review
Text: The Mac Internet Tour Guide By Gary Baker, SMUG member The Mac Internet Tour Guide is a book by Michael Fraase, who is an Internet "resident" at The Electronic Visitor's Center where he takes suggestions and gives advice and offers updates on his book about Internet services and software. The Mac Internet Tour Guide comes packaged with an 800K disk. The disk contains the freeware/shareware programs, Eudora v1.3.1, Fetch v2.1, Stuffit Expander v3.0.1 and a ReadMe instruction file. This is just enough software to get to E-mail addresses and to download the other software programs you'll need from the Internet itself. The strengths of MITG seem to be: * It is a comforting, friendly presentation of Internet; * It serves as a User Manual for many of the most important software programs designed to make use of Internet. The book delivers locations of these software programs on the Internet and instructions for downloading them and general instructions on their use and purpose; * It contains a collage of addresses of the most popular sites and resources on the Internet, spread willy-nilly through the book in the text and sidebars, unfortunately; * It contains a good glossary of terms, especially helpful for those of us who need refresher information. Many acronyms and terms used in literature or dialog about computer communications are briefly explained; * It's author hangs out on Internet, at his own permanent Electronic Visitor Center, where book owners can go for updates, information or complaints; * It provides important Internet etiquette to prevent new users from embarrassing themselves. It saves neophytes some of the abundant flack they would otherwise receive from Internet old-timers who seem to delight in trashing newcomers; To my eye, the weaknesses of MITG are: * The book's price ($28) and the price of annual updates. * The organization of the material. MITG is ''interesting and friendly'' at the expense of usefulness as a reference. * The absence of a complete, concise Quick Reference. The Author's ''Neat Stuff'' on pages 243-260 represents an excellent quick reference format, but it is not complete. ''Neat Stuff'' includes the resource name in alphabetical order, the type of resource tool used to find it, the Internet address, a brief summary description of the resource, and helpful hints about using the specific Internet resource. The major Internet programs presented in depth though out the book in the main text or in sidebars should have been repeated in the ''Neat Stuff'' section. Another useful Brief Description of Internet Programs is listed, oddly, under the author's advertisement for his ''Electronic Visitor's Center'' on the Internet. This listing is deficient of Internet addresses for the resources and reference to pages in the book where greater detail is available. The index is OK, but incomplete. This also detracts from the book's potential as a reference. Many major text headings and side- bar titles are not in the index. There is something titled ''Quick Reference''. It is an appropriate section, but is just a number/name list, not a reference. * Inadequate information and software for users desiring independent PPP or SLIP connections. MacTCP is needed to gain Internet access before you can download anything, including MacTCP, SLIP/PPP software and their linking drivers. MacTCP, SLIP/PPP software is not provided on the accompanying disk. Commercial restrictions? This book is valuable and readable. It is most appropriate to someone like me who is new to the Internet. Internet ''expected behavior'' and etiquette described in this book is bound to help all neophytes. This book contains the information required to be a good reference, but it is often hard to find what you're looking for among the friendly chat, the Tour Guide metaphor and the haphazard sidebars. I expect that this good book will improve rapidly with each new edition. The instant feedback the author will receive at his ''Electronic Visitor's Center'' will provide him the directions for improving. The following are brief descriptions of major tools used by
Macintosh for getting the most from Internet: * Eudora is a freeware E-mail program. You can use Eudora to send private messages to friends and associates on Internet*assuming you have an Internet E-Mail account somewhere. Eudora is going commercial soon. * Fetch is a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) used for downloading or uploading files at various archives on the Internet. Fetch is freeware for noncommercial connections and shareware for commercial users. Also need Mac TCP-IP and SLIP/PPP or Ethernet to use Fetch. Fetch is a completely GUI program, a rarity on the net. * Nuntius is a freeware USENET news and news group and mailing list program for Internet. * TurboGopher is a browsing and FTP freeware program which replaces Fetch in many situations. Unlike Fetch, where you need to know what server to connect to, Gopher moves around Internet servers, connecting briefly and showing you files in the category of your search. Unlike Fetch, it connects only briefly to each server, so servers usually don't place connect-time limits on Gopher. File transfer is easy, with a menu driven interface. The problem with Gopher is that not all servers support it, though more and more do. * NCSA TELNET is a terminal emulation program that uses TCP/ IP Internet to allow access to servers or any other Internet connected computer. SLIP/PPP or Internet needed. Internet acronyms: * TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol- protocol standards used throughout Internet. * FTP: File Transfer Protocol-protocol for connecting to servers and up- & downloading files. * UUCP: UNIX to UNIX Copy Program-a program developed for communication between UNIX users on Internet. Most of the Internet Commands are Unix/C-based, because that is what the folks who designed it used. Occasionally you may have to emulate this program to get materials from UNIX users. * PPP/SLIP: Modem connections to Internet (Generally, these are temporary connections via modem and limited to modem transfer speeds*as opposed to the more desirable situation where you belong to a network with a dedicated full-time connection to Internet, such as Humboldt State University VAX. A SLIP/PPP can be a permanent node on the Internet. With a T1 or ISDN line, soon you'll be able to communicate through phone lines at EtherNet speeds. Point to Point Protocol is newer and considered by the author to be better than the more common Serial Line Internet Protocol. The Mac Internet Tour Guide is available at a list price of $27.95, ISBN-56604-062-0, 290 pages, published by Ventura Press, P.O. Box 7468, Chapel Hill, NC 27515

Copyright © january, 1994 by Gary Baker


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