Product Description

Turn off the TV and grab your mouse. Log onto the Internet and you can watch films, listen to the radio, chat with a favourite sports star, or play chess with someone halfway around the world. This guide shows you how and where to do it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3533087 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 119 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In the seventies we had Python's tie and matching handkerchief; in the noughties, the increasingly popular fashion is for book and matching Web site. One of a series of guides, including Shopping and the Net the "cool guides" may not do anything other Web reviewers don't do but they do it rather more beautifully.

The team of editors reviews each site in a brief but lively manner with special mentions for content, design (including usability and strength of site architecture) and originality. The entertainment guide has special sections on chat, with a glossary of terms and clear explication of the various chat software packages: ICQ, IRC, AIM. It takes you through downloading and manipulating MP3 files, and has two clearly written pages on what kinds of results you can expect depending on the speed of your connection, and which plug-ins you'll need to view various types of media: RealPlayer, QuickTime, Flash.

The book itself looks like a nicely designed Web site, and is well-organised for ease of use, with an extensive table of contents as well as an index that helps you find sites, or locate newsgroups, by name. If you're fed up of trawling through endless sites that promise everything and deliver precious little, this book helps to separate the dross from the good'uns. --Liz Bailey