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Networking CD Bookshelf
by by O’Reilly Associates, Inc. Reviewed by Eb Guenther www.hal-pc.org, ebg@guenther.com - August 20, 1999 at 15:12:51:
Introduction“Networking CD Bookshelf” is a library of O’Reilly’s most popular networking books (about 4,000 pages in all) on CD, in hypertext format, for reading with a browser.
The CD, in keeping with modern publishing practices, will work on multiple platforms, such as Unix, Mac, and Windows.
Included in this library are: “TCP/IP Network Administration”, “Sendmail”, “DNS and BIND”, “Practical UNIX & Internet Security”, “Building Internet Firewalls”, and “Sendmail Desktop Reference”.
This is not a review of the content, but the container. How well did O’Reilly convert the books to electronic format, how easy is it to install, use, and search the individual books, as well as the entire library. My review is based on the Windows platform. Installation on other platforms differ, and some other platforms may require an external search engine.
Installation
Installation of the book text consists of popping the CD into the drive, and opening the {CD}:\index.htm file. Whichever browser is associated with HTML files on your system will start with a menu of books in the library. Select a book and start reading.
Installing the included search engine is only slightly more complex. The Windows “autorun” feature installs the search engine (SE in the rest of this article) automatically, asking to save its files in the “C:\temp” directory. If you agree, you will have no further interactions with the install program, unless you clean out your temp directory. The ASTAware search engine saves not only temporary files, but also its configuration files to the temp directory. Why not the Registry?
Reading the Library
Networking CD Bookshelf is a library of books. The content is delightfully easy to read. O’Reilly did an excellent job converting the original text to hypertext format.
To start, point your browser at {CD}:\index.htm and select the desired book from the title page. Each book starts with an alphabetical index and table of content. Navigation at the top and bottom of the pages is clean, and intuitive. You can invoke the search engine from the top of the page.
Obvious improvements over the otherwise identical text of these books are the references to other books or sections. These are hyperlinks, allowing nearly instant access to other sections.
With the web browsers as reader you gain the use of bookmarks for your library. In addition, Netscape can be configured to start with the last page read. So your reading sessions take up where you leave off.
Searching the Library
Like any reference library, you probably will use Networking CD Bookshelf as a reference. This is not as easy as one would think. The six books total over 4,000 pages, so a search capability is essential.
According to the publisher, “... (Networking CD Bookshelf has) a powerful search engine ...” Sorry, but I found the search engine anything but powerful.
Only basic Boolean operators are supported (AND, OR, NOT).
Not supported are searches for exact phrases, like “class A address”.
The quoted string generates an error, the unquoted string returns gibberish _ see sample searches below. Also unsupported is searching for proximity matches, where search terms are to be in close proximity, such as when you don’t know the exact wording of a phrase you’re looking for.
Once a search returns several pages of links to chapters, one would expect to find clear indications of what was found, including which book it was found in. Not so! The SE identified returns links only by Chapter number and title.
When you browse through the titles found, and you reach the bottom of the page, you would expect to click on “next page” and continue browsing the additional results. Not so!
You will have to scroll back up to the top of the current page to find the link to the next page (or the previous one). Duh!
Deficiencies not withstanding, I tested the SE with these search targets:
1. find the list of IP addresses reserved for private networks.
2. find a phrase selected from a hard copy at random.
3. find a known keyword, “cat” (Unix-speak for “type”).
4. find a known “unwanted” keyword, “A.”
1st search, for “IP addresses” (without quotes), produced 200 hits. Adding “reserved”, i.e. search for “reserved IP addresses” returned 33 hits. Adding “private” reduced the number of hits to 5. Checking the content verified that the desired information existed. About what I expected.
2nd search, I picked a unique phrase at random from a hard copy, “how could Ms. Nobel have protected herself from the catastrophe?” from the middle of “Practical Unix & Internet Security”. The entire phrase did not produce any hits, but removing punctuation, and searching for “how could Ms Nobel have protected herself from the catastrophe” produced a single hit of the correct chapter.
3rd search, for “cat” returned 46 hits, like “indiCATe,” “impliCATions,” “invoCATion,” “CATegories,” etc, but not the chapter containing “CATastrophe.”
4th search, for “a” returned 200 hits of “a” in different words, as well as articles between words. Same gibberish as I got in searching for “class a.” Properly working search engines discard articles, and frequently used words. I expected an error, or at least zero hits.
Bottom Line
Three stars for the text conversion, one star for the search engine. Despite my criticism, CD libraries are the wave of the future.
Is the CD library worth the money?
If you truly need all six books, then the CD is a bargain at $80 vs. $185 for the hard-copy price.
As a reference library, if you don’t expect anything from the ASTA search engine, you will not be disappointed. But sooner or later you’ll wish you had a real search engine for the 4,000 + pages of highly technical material.
Eb Guenther produces bi-lingual (German and English) technical manuals, brochures, and web pages, as well as technical translations. Contact Eb at ebg@guenther.com.
E-mail me at mfoster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have.
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