************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** 1996 Canadian Internet Handbook by Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead Prentice Hall Canada Inc. Let's review. In 1994 Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead came out with the first installment of their Canadian Internet Handbook. It was a slim yet innovative work, filling a niche on the bookstore shelf before there was a need to fill a niche to survive in the now crowded market for Internet manuals. The 1995 edition was bigger, although not necessarily better. Small disappointments like sloppy layout, a Toronto-centric focus, and boring appendices that filled two-thirds of the book detracted from what should have been another fantastic tome. Still, as I noted in my review last year, if you had the bucks to spend on only one Internet book, the 1995 edition was a safe bet. The third annual installment of the Canadian Internet Handbook is now out and it's more than a safe bet, it's a sure winner. Appendices have been cut back to only a third, although they have scaled down what was my favorite part, a listing of cool Canadian web and gopher sites. A companion work called the 1996 Canadian Internet Directory now features about three hundred pages of home-spun web site listings. The book's layout has been jazzed up with vibrant formatting and numerous screen captures. Carroll and Broadhead have abandoned the Toronto focus and worked hard to find examples of how the net is being implemented at sites all across Canada. A dozen new chapters have been added including an interesting overview of what's on the horizon (e.g., using the Internet for phone calls or videoconferencing through CU-SeeMe technology) and a look at how you can go about creating your very own web site. (It seems you're nobody on the net it you don't have your own personal page these days.) Probably the most valuable section of the book is in those appendices I keep grumbling about: a step-by-step guide to setting up Windows 95 for a typical provider. Microsoft marketroids yammer on and on about how much easier everything is with Windows 95 but if you ever tried to use the operating system to connect to the Internet, it isn't all that easy! In my favorite chapter, "The Internet in Canada: From Niche to Mainstream," Carroll and Broadhead give a plethora of illuminating statistical information on who in Canada is using the net (a bit more than two-thirds of users are male), what they're using it for (email), and what they want (news) and don't want (hate literature). Altogether, the 1996 Canadian Internet Handbook is a precise but friendly guide to the net. It will get you through the basics and still leave you with plenty of interesting reading material when you've thrown off the shackles of newbie-hood. Even better, with a list price of $24.95 for nearly 900 page of relevant information, there's no question that the 1996 Canadian Internet Handbook is the best buy of the year.