advice and guidance about how to use the programs for these services.

First, the book provides a general overview of the Internet, what it is, how it works, and what you can find there. There are examples of typical web pages for the different categories of information. Then there's a thorough introduction to the most crucial services on the Net with you playing the part of the user.

The book covers using the Web, key Web concepts, what a Web page is, etc. It also provides a comprehensive introduction to searching for information on the Web using the Alta Vista search engine. Here, the author provides advice on how to perform searches, establish effective search criteria, how search engines work, and how they gather their information. The section on the Web also explains how you can easily create your own Web pages and then publish them to the Web.

Then the book covers general use of e-mail, what commands you'll find in a typical e-mail system, advice and hints about using e-mail, key concepts, etc. The goal is to turn you into a confident e-mail user.

The next topic is an introduction to news groups. This is uncharted territory for most people and there's often a great deal of excitement for this service once you're introduced to how it works and how to use it. There are literally tens of thousands of discussion groups on every conceivable topic.

The book also includes chapters on topics such as bulletin boards, meetings on the Internet, file transfers using FTP, chat using IRC, viruses and the Internet, and encryption.

The last half of the book covers practical, hands-on use of the most pertinent services on the Internet. Since Netscape and Microsoft have dominated the software side of things so far, and since the programs are free, their programs are used as examples. Therefore the book includes a practical guide to the Netscape Navigator and MS Internet Explorer browsers and the programs Netscape Messenger and MS Outlook Express, both used for e-mail and news groups. This user's guide covers the needs of a typical user and shows step-by-step how to perform the most common tasks. The user's guide also demonstrates how to use some of the programs' advanced features. These are also demonstrated with step-by-step instructions.

The book is 478 pages and includes an index. ORDER>