Windows NT in a Nutshell, Eric Pearce, OReilly & Associates, 348 pp, £14.95If you don't know your RAS from your elbow and have a problem but can't imagine what should be DUN then you may well be a new user of Windows NT - Microsoft's big brother to Windows 3.1 and 95. The addition of a Win 95-style graphical interface to Version 4 of Win NT made it appear more approachable, but enough underlying differences remain to make the change troublesome even for advanced users of 95. Added to this is occasional confusion between the workstation version of NT, intended to run the PC on your desktop, and the more complex server version providing services over a network.
Pearce begins by outlining the NT areas which may be new to PC users, including security, multi-protocol networking and the fact that it is a multi-user network operating system. The text then proceeds command-bycommand in chapters on the Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Accessories, RAS and DUN (Remote Access Service and Dial-Up Networking to their friends). The longest chapter is on the command-line interface and its multiple commands, options and switches. Differences between the server and workstation versions are noted where relevant.
Intended as a quick reference for system administrators, the book "does not document the obvious" but provides examples and explanations as well as dry descriptions of the commands and programs it covers. Likely to prove useful to anyone more than a casual user of Windows NT.
Learning Perl 2nd Edition, Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Christiansen, O'Reilly & Associates, 269pp, £21.95.
This book's predecessor is affectionately known as "the llama book" to a generation of programmers. They used it as a first step into the "practical extraction and reporting language" (or "pathologically eclectic rubbish lister") used for Web publishing and system administration on Unix, VMS, Macintosh, Windows and other operating systems.
Perl is free, uniquely powerful for manipulating text files, blisteringly fast and concise enough to create useful programs only a few lines long, but getting started with it can be a little daunting. Updated to cover Perl Version 5 and new library files which extend its capabilities, this edition retains the easy style and humour of the original. Examples and exercises leaven its feature-by-feature description of Perl. The comment is far from original but this is the easiest way into Perl.
Michelangelo: Sculpture & Paintings, BMG Interactive, PC/Macintosh, £39.99.
It's hard to decide at first whether the presentation or the content of this CD-Rom is the more notable. Extremely stylish (occasionally to the detriment of visual clarity) at times the approach resembles an annotated gallery, a coffee-table book or aradio documentary.
Michelangelo's work is set firmly in the context of his life story and the political upheavals and intrigues which buffeted him. Spoken narrative, evocative music and simple animation brighten the information, and navigation is down through a menu of four main headings: the work, places, characters and narrative.
Within individual sections, such as the one on the Sistine Chapel, icons around the edge of the screen provide easy cross-references to relevant places and characters.
After enjoying the initial presentation, it is irritating not to have an easier way to ferret out single facts or dates. Those wanting to pad out a school essay will have to do some typing, as there is no obvious means to export text or images. Otherwise, the disc succeeds in maintaining interest and making a mass of information digestible.
Ireland Diskovered & The Ireland Game, Al Brenner, no price given.
Slick it ain't. The CD-Rom with the promise "Be an Ireland KNOW-IT-ALL" on the cover has a lot of spelling mistakes. So many that you suspect some must be deliberate, such as the author's promise that "I might even send a free copy of the revised disk to the first person who informs of an yerror."
The typos irritate, but they don't disguise the effort and enthusiasm that one man has put into this collection of "facts, figures, oddities, readings and other surprises from Ireland". Al Brenner, of Derry, New Hampshire, came to Ireland, photographed, travelled and wrote. This disc of pictures, places and humour is the result.
It's not the last word on the subject, but it is the most personal, direct and ironic CD-Rom that has come in to Computimes for review in four years. For this, its sense of humour and for showing that this new medium doesn't belong only to large companies, it may well be worth having.
HTML
The Definitive Guide Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy O'Reilly & Associates 532pp, £
This book doesn't beat about the bush so neither will we: it's an excellent reference book on HTML; but if you're an absolute beginner who doesn't know what those initials stand for, then it's probably not for you.
This book is for HTML junkies, people who want to get much more serious about Web design, people who won't regard the style as dry (well, arid) but refreshingly no-nonsense. Like crusty old professors, the authors give stern warnings every time nonstandard HTML tags pop up, and no harm either.
Though it's almost the thickness of a telephone directory, it's ideal for quick reference, and this second edition takes into account new browsers and standards - Navigator 4.0, Explorer 4.0 and HTML 3.2. Since the first edition came out a year ago, I've returned to its appendices often enough - and photocopied its "quick reference" card several times for the wall next to my computer. Essential. Well, essential for the moment, at least until HTML 4.0.