The Internet and World Wide Web: The Rough Guide to (Rough Guide Internet/Computing)

So you want to know about the Internet already, but you'll be damned if you're going to carry a book that calls you an idiot or a dummy? Lucky for you, Angus Kennedy has written a hip and compelling guide to all things Web-based with The Internet: The Rough Guide. Truly pocket-sized and jammed with basic, straightforward facts, Kennedy also throws in cool gems to help us all realize why we got so excited about the Web in the first place.

On the Internet, where addresses change faster than print can keep up, a new edition of an introductory guide is essential. The '99 version of this Rough Guide reflects all the latest changes and fads, and yet is substantial enough to want to keep within arm's reach. This guide is anything but bland, as Kennedy weighs in often with his razor-sharp (and accurate) opinions: on Suck, an online magazine, he says, "In a smug class all by itself, and arguably the only ezine that ever mattered" and on Underwire, MSN's channel for "women's issues," he comments, "You might wonder if you really need to go online to read this sort of stuff." "Weird" sites get a sublisting all their own, and the listing on e-bookstores isn't confined to the usual suspects. (Cult guru John Water's campy Atomic Books is one worthy find.)

Normally, print indexes of sites don't merit much--the information they provide is accessible by any search engine and having to type in lengthy URLs removes any benefit their simplicity might provide. But in The Internet: The Rough Guide, Kennedy's hit on a perfect balance of serious, tech-heavy background tutorial and a cutting-edge yellow-page guide for the 21st century. --Jennifer Buckendorff