[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Stuff I Said I'd Post
Stuff For Sale
|
I have done (or am working on) several book-sized objects, notably:
Note: Remember that Internet books make great gifts!
I wrote this during my year at Prime Computer as a tech writer (1977-1978)..
Although I was hired as editor for the tech pubs group, I got assigned
to write a user guide for Prime's EDITOR text editor (line-oriented, preceding CRTs,
y'know) and RUNOFF (like DEC's nroff, Multic's roff, Unix nroff/troff, etc.)
text formatter -- a task which the previous several tech writers had not solved.
Here's the cover, in color,
and here's the full manual for the typeset version of my manual.
While technically a technical manual, it had unusual
(for the time) features including:
The manual represented several "firsts" at Prime, including:
-
First manual on Ed/Runoff that actually made sense, and could
be read/used by non-tech staff. (Until I wrote this, for example,
the secretarial/typing pool in the tech pubs department was using
only six or seven Runoff commands -- and at least two of those
incorrectly. The highest praise I received was hearing one
typist tell a new pool hire, "Here, read this.")
-
First manual to be typeset
-
First manual to include author's name
The astute reader will notice that my first Internet book bears
many conceptually stylistic similarities to my Prime manual.
(The critic-oriented may choose to view this as a dubious form of
techno-literary forshadowing; the more cynical as self-plagiarism
or stylistic narrowness. Poo.)
Not surprisingly,
The New User's Guide to the B-shell (bsh),
one of the manuals I did while a technical writer at
Bolt Beranek & Newman, a.k.a. BBN
(which got bought by GTE in 1997) had many similarities of motif and method.
Gratifyingly enough, there are still some people around who
remember my Prime manual fondly.
My first book (title sometimes abbreviated as
IG4NU or tIG4NU), published by McGraw-Hill.
There are over 100,000 copies in print, not counting the Italian
and Japanese translations.
I had been (sigh) working on the second edition
(see below)... Don't try this at home.
The first edition of The Internet Guide for New Users first
rolled off the presses in August 1993, just in time for the
INTEROP conference/trade show then being held in San Francisco.
(The copyright is 1994, for publisher-type reasons.) The ISBN #
for the trade paperback is 007-016-511-4; for
the hardcover, the ISBN # is 007-016-510-6. The
original B&W illustrations are by science fiction and fantasy artist
Hannah M.G. Shapero.
The intent of the book, as the title suggests, was to be for NEW users
--people who:
- may never have used networks or on-line services or e-mail (or Unix!) before
- may not yet have had (or know they have) Internet access
- had at minimum a DOS, Windows, Mac, Amiga or other personal computer,
modem and VT100 emulator telecom software (or PPP/SLIP and TCP/IP w/GUI for
those who want to go higher-end)
- were willing to spend about a dollar a day for some form of account.
The first edition of The Internet Guide for New Users is
admittedly less than current. Heck, it came out nearly four years
ago...and a lot has changed in that time. Netscape had
not yet been born, ditto Win95, and Microsoft had yet to
acknowledge the existance of the Internet in any meaningful way.
I did mention Mosaic and give a screen shot of it...but Gopher
(remember Gopher?) was still in its final heyday, and the Web
still new.
So the first edition, unsurprisingly, focussed much more on
command-line-oriented clients, Unix, and shell access (all of
which I still use regularly), and gives little attention to the
Web, graphic browsers like Mosaic, or PPP/SLIP accounts -- none
of these were meaningfully, affordably available when this
version was wrapped up.
The book has been very well received by the Internet community
and in general. Jerry Pournelle named it "Book of the Month" in
his column in Byte, March 1994. It's not
perfect -- I'm all too well aware of its flaws and shortcomings
-- but it was one of the first comprehensive books about the
Internet available (Ed Krol's Whole Internet Catalog
from O'Reilly & Co. came out
first), and I'm proud of it for what it was and still is.
But, as I'm the first to admit, this edition's time is past;
while much of the information in the book is still true, the
focus of the book no longer reflects where people nor the
Internet is today. Assuming you can even find a copy in a store
(libraries bought a lot of these, and I have some in my back room
I'd be happy to sell you -- autographed, even!), I don't
recommend you get this as your first Internet book. (But see
below.)
(And For Not-So-New Users ... and Also For Intranet
Users)
Depending on your perspective, this would have been either a second edition
of The Internet Guide for New Users ...or a
brand new book.
For various reasons, it didn't happen... and now (2006) it's way
too late in the game for it to be worth updating. (I'm open to doing
it, but I don't see publishers finding it a valid financial proposition.)
Here's what I said about this intended revision, back when I thought it
would happen...
It's based on the first edition of tIG4NU, but encompasses the
new breed of computer user who comes to the Internet with
different (usually less) computer and network experience, is
armed with one of the now-ubiquitous graphic browsers like
Netscape, or Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and has a fast,
affordably-priced account, and a computer that can do fancy
images, sound, and video. (It's still also relevant to, and
aimed at, shell-account users with command-line, ASCII-only Unix
clients.)
Like the first edition, I've gone into detail on how to choose
and ISP and get an account, how to use e-mail and Usenet and so
on, and "enough Unix to survive as an Internet user."
I've also added lots of new information, like stuff on the search
engines, "Internet-speak," and understanding what "searching the
net" means, a sample/starter home page, plus a chapter with 500
or so URLs, and more.
Watch DernWeb for announcements and an area that works with the
book content (like many of the URLs). If you've already got a
copy of the first edition, getting this one also may be worth it
-- but hang onto that first edition (especially the ones with the
yellow covers), it's a valuable Internet
Collectible. (Well, maybe.)
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
DernWeb: Main Page
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Articles
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Book(s)
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
P.R.
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Columns
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Speeches & Presentations
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Internet Song Parodies
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Humor
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Science Fiction
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Stuff I Said I'd Post
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Stuff I Said I'd Post
Copyright © Daniel P. Dern
Last modified: Monday, 12-Mar-2012 23:28:31 EDT
|