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Subject:Re: Internet books From:Andreas Ramos <andreas -at- NETCOM -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 29 Jun 1994 12:30:16 -0700
> Has anyone mentioned _Internet for Dummies_ (from the Dummies series) by
> Levine and Baroudi?
In reviewing some ten internet books for a company internet installation,
I found the Internet for Dummies to be the worse one. Written by a
professor of computer science, you need to be another prof. of computer
science to get anything out of it.
Sharon Fisher's Riding the Internet Highway is the most readable for a
newbie or non-techie. Simple and to the point. One doesn't really need to
know about the history etc. of the net. That's like talking about the
history of the interstate highways. All you gotta know is where to get
good food and find clean bathrooms.
A good bit of fun is the Internet Yellow Pages. In teaching the net to
newbies, they can rummage through this, see what is out there, and find
something that they really like or are interested in. They'll then have a
reason to use the net. The book is obsolete, but it's a good start.
In my experience, a newbie needs about 30 days to figure it out. The info
should be simple at that level. Just stick to e-mail, newsgroups, and
gopher. After that, they'll began to pick up the more obscure things, such
as ftp, etc.
