Washington Apple Pi

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Old Fart’s Guide to Internet Searches
by Aaron Rosenzweig

Book Review by Stuart Bonwit

Washington Apple Pi Journal, reprint information

I previously reviewed Aaron Rosenzweig's book, Old Fart's Guide to the Macintosh (Washington Apple Pi Journal, March/April 2003, p.27). The better qualities of that book are very similar to those of the book currently being reviewed.

Author Aaron Rosenzweig is obviously a very good researcher who knows how to mine the Interenet. His accounting of historical events and things is particularly impressive.

Mr. Rosenzweig has produced a well written, well organized, and, most importantly, clear book on the use of the Internet for searching. The book cover tells us (Fig. 1), this is “A book for anyone interested in mastering the World Wide Web.” The Preface starts, “This unique book caters to the person who has heard the word Internet or the phrase World Wide Web but is not sure what they entail or how to fully utilize them.” One should not be fooled. While the book starts off expecting that the reader is as just described, it ends with subjects that are quite advanced.

Old Fart's Guide to Internet Searches

The physical layout of the pages is well designed. Every page has a sidebar in which the chapter title is displayed in the lower corner with the page number. Notes highlighting the important points of a paragraph are printed adjacent to that paragraph. And images are included alongside the paragraphs describing them.

In his chapter "How do I Find What I'm Looking For?," Mr. Rosenzweig provides step-by-step instructions that should give anybody confidence in using the Internet.

I learned a number of things. For instance, Google will provide a human being to help you do a search. Another that should have been obvious but wasn't is the syntax of a request. I was looking for a review of a show that played Off-Broadway and is now coming to Broadway. Instead of typing:

Assassins review

I should have typed:

“assassins” review

This indicates that the word “Assassins" is a required word and "review" is what is being sought.

Chapter headings listed in the Table of Contents give some idea of the topics coverage:

The writing style is very easy and clear. There is no techno-babble and, when specific computer terms are introduced, they are clearly explained. The book is comprehensive and up-to-date.

The title of this book may give the reader some pause. It has been OKd by the Journal's powers-to-be. For a more complete explanation please see the previous article.

The book is published by Cocoa Nuts Technology, LLC and may be ordered from Amazon.com for $19.95.

I would strongly recommend this book for any Mac Internet beginner and I think any Mac user would benefit from it.