| Issue #64/Aug. '00 |
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By John Nemerovski | The Weird Wide Web | The Mac Bible Goodies Pack | New Riders' Official World Wide Web Yellow Pages 1997 Edition | New Riders' Official World Wide Web Yellow Pages, Fifth Edition | 
The Weird Wide Web
David Pogue is at the top of the heap of Macintosh writers with enough books and Macworld columns to his credit to topple a large bookcase. Erfert Fenton is a technical writer, with both magazine articles and books, including Peachpit's The Macintosh Font Book.
The World Wide Web (WWW) is the ideal medium for contemporary info-tainment, but it also contains a hearty quantity of frivolity and triviality. Erfert (www.fentonia.com/erf
) and David (www.concentric.net/~Pogue
) combined forces to assist us in enjoying many bizarre and outrageous Web sites.
This book is very silly. If your taste in offbeat humor includes extensive discussion of "Rude Things in My fridge," or "Dermatology in the Cinema," this book is for you. The back cover of The Weird Wide Web promises "answers to life's most profound mysteries," but this opus redefines the meaning of "profound."
The Weird Wide Web is a lightweight in another crucial aspect. At 131 pages for $13/$18/£12, this book is worth barely 25 percent of its price. A few of the full-service Internet directories have listings for unusual sites, such as Chapter 13 in What's On the Web 1997 (Eric Gagnon, editor; Internet Media).
Black and white photos and screen shots illustrate many of the "bizarre back roads of the Web." The book is just that; a book, with no CD-ROM disk. There is a dedicated URL (Uniform Resource Locater, or Internet address) for the book, at http://members.aol.com/Pogue
.
Are you in the market for UFO Abduction Insurance (www.gslink.net/~ufo
) or a juicy Shakespearean Insult (www.nova.edu/Inter-Links/cgi-bin/bard.pl
)? If so, plunge right into The Weird Wide Web. If not, however, the book will seem to be an IDG Books-sanctioned April Fool's Day joke.
The authors also advise us to "Lighten up. Our advice: laugh." David and Erfert suggest Yahoo's Useless Pages Index and the "Centre for the Easily Amused." My advice is to dredge up your own personal set of weird wonders of the Web.
How do I say this diplomatically? I'm disappointed. Next time, authors and publisher, please give us a better book at a better price.
P.S.- David Pogue reminds me that: "It'd be silly indeed to pay $13 for the book when it's available from www.pogueman.com
or Amazon.com
for $10.40, no tax. And our Web site for the book includes excerpts, a guided tour of 20 of the Weird sites, picture of the cover, and so on. Hope this helps!"
Is it a book? Yes, sort of. Is it a CD-ROM? Yes, two of them.
The first CD, "The Mac Bible CD-ROM," has four separate features:
The outstanding Macintosh Bible, 6th Edition is worth the price of this CD, if you prefer using Acrobat PDF to read a book. I personally favor a conventional book, but the entire 1000+ page bible is definitely all here. Most everything else on the CD is now available via the Internet, so you should consider purchasing this Goodies Pack primarily for the Mac Bible.
The second disk included is the "Fall 1996 BMUG PD-ROM," from Berkeley Macintosh Users Group. As an all-in-one source for shareware and freeware, the disk is comprehensive, but much of the software is no longer the most recent version.
Recommendation
Yes, you are correct. New Riders/Macmillan has two apparently identical World Wide Web (WWW) 1997 directories. I'll call the first Yellow Pages YP-97 and the second one YP-5, for the Fifth Edition. Please read on.
I have had many months to become familiar with YP-97, and I heartily recommend it, from dozens of hours of personal usage. This Yellow Pages wastes no time, beginning immediately with a thorough 81-page Table of Contents, containing the Directory Listings. The 38 major categories include Art, Computers, Education, Entertainment, Internet Resources, Music, Sexuality, Travel, and much more.
Each main category features bold primary headings, followed by the name of the actual World Wide Web site. The majority of chapters have dozens, or hundreds of Web sites itemized: Computers has 1067, Education has 242, Music has 376, and Sports has 224. The pages are numbered in Roman numerals, though, which is quite clumsy.
Next come the individual chapters introducing the World Wide Web, the Internet, Usenet Newsgroups and E-Mail, followed by "What You Need to Link to the Web" and "Examining WWW Browsers." Within these 55 pages of basics, the text is surprisingly lively and supremely informative, even to a seasoned Internetter. The explanations are consistently instructive, and the column layout is liberally enhanced with Notes and Tips. An example:
Tip: A great feature of the newsreader in Netscape is its capability to handle binary files. If a message includes an attachment, such as a graphics file, you can view the image in the newsreader window without saving the file to your hard disk and unencoding the file first.
New Riders makes a determined effort to educate the readers on every basic aspect and feature of the Net, not just the ones pertaining to the Yellow Pages itself. The main event, 700 pages of itemized WWW URLs (uniform resource locaters, or specific Internet addresses), is presented in a concise, straightforward manner.
This Yellow Pages is aimed primarily at readers and users in the United States. Many international URLs are included, and thousands of the Web sites have links to international WWW addresses, but the list is definitely directed at the USA. After the more than 9,000 URLs and descriptions come 36 pages listing the WWW sites for hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the world. Then there is a thorough 121 page Index, with each site listed again, this time cross-referenced alphabetically.
It is customary nowadays for publishers to include a CD-ROM disk with every reference book. This Yellow Pages features a disk compatible with Macintosh, Windows, and Unix systems, in which every item in the book is included, category by category: "You simply load the Welcome.htm file into your favorite Web browser and point and click your way onto the World Wide Web."
*****
Just when I was becoming totally familiar with YP-97, the new YP-5 appeared. Hmmm. What's going on here? This fresh book/CD combination claims to be updated with over 2,600 new sites.
This latest Yellow Pages is different indeed. The Table of Contents is brief and specific. The 82-page introduction is totally new, and features lively articles such as "Head-to-Head: How the Browsers Stack Up" and "Online Publications: Using Them to Your Advantage."
Over 10,000 listings of Web sites comprise the bulk of the book, at 10 - 14 per page, on 867 pages. As before, the Yellow Pages is simply extraordinary in both quantity and scope.The Colleges and Universities section is tucked, alphabetically now, into 48 pages beginning on page 175.
The new page and font design is not as easy for me to look through as in the earlier edition, but who am I to complain about 2,600 more listings? I do like the additional artwork, featuring both Web page screen shots and cute cartoons. The range of itemized sites is colossal. The monster Index runs to over 200 pages in three columns, and is a fascinating work of site compilation. The dedicated CD runs on both Mac and the other platform, and works with all popular Web browsers.
JOHN'S RECOMMENDATION
The logical choice is to buy the latest and greatest New Riders' Official World Wide Web Yellow Pages, Fifth Edition. But if you happen to come upon its worthy predecessor, New Riders' Official World Wide Web Yellow Pages 1997 Edition, put it to the test, and it will give you many productive (and also time-wasting) hours of superior browsing.
John Nemerovski (nemo@mymac.com)
Websites mentioned:
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