Comments on Osheroff (1995)

Preface

• x: N.B. e-mail address for editor.
• xviii: N.B. 1985 article on information requirements in practice.
• xxii: No updated information available for the moment, a new edition is planned.

Chapter 1

• 7: All operating systems crash, not just Unix.
• 9: It's misleading to refer to a `network' as an `operating system'.
• 9 ff: The standard abbreviation for `byte' is 'B', not 'b', so `megabytes' should be `MB'. `Mb' means `megabits'. (See also p. 182.)
• 16: It may be overkill to do a full backup every day. A common strategy is to do a weekly full backup and daily incremental backups (see p. 191).

Chapter 2

• 33-34: Logically, the section on OCR should come right after the section on scanning. Also, OCR for machine-printed text is more mature than voice recognition.

Chapter 3

• 39: How was the article located and copied?
• 40: Being `online' doesn't necessarily imply the use of a modem and telephone lines. The term also applies to being directly connected to a network.

Chapter 4

• 66: The odds should be expressed as `3 to 97', not `3 in 97'.
• 70: How can one use DXplain via the Internet?
• 71: What do the `diseases' and `findings' numbers mean? Can they be compared?

Chapter 8

• 131: The statement that `you must send a request to the "list owner"' is contradicted in the next sentence.
• 132: Whether messages are arranged according to subject depends on the particular mail or news reader being used.
• 133: It's important to note that the speed of the Internet depends on the speed of the slowest link on the route taken by particular data, and on the amount of traffic at the time.
• 134: It's misleading to refer to Gopher and Mosaic and `interfaces' FTP and Telnet. The Gopher protocol is different from FTP and very different from Telnet. The World Wide Web protocol used by Mosaic incorporates both FTP and Gopher, and can also invoke a Telnet session.
• 134: Even before Gopher it was possible to find things on the Internet without knowing precise locations, by using Archie and by using FTP to browse within archives.
• 134: The word `archaic' should be `arcane'.
• 134: One should say `Gopher servers on the Internet' rather than `the Internet Gopher'.
• 134: The term `commercial online vendors' is redundant and ambiguous. It would be more precise to say 'vendors of Internet access'.
• 135: The paragraph starting `Mosaic is an exemplar ...' is awkwardly worded. Say that `Much like Gopher, Mosaic enabled a point-and-click interface' seems to imply that Gopher used a graphical interface. And Mosaic took things not `one important step further' but at least three important steps: use of multimedia, formatting commands within documents, and links within documents. Note that plain-text files, as used by Gopher, were not entirely unformatted: they could contain indenting, blank lines, etc. Gopher documents could also be formatted `just as on the printed page', it's just that the formatting was primitive; and the word `however' should be `moreover'.
• 135: Gopher, FTP and Telent also require the use of SLIP or PPP.
• 144: 28.8-kbaud modems are now common.
• 145: Many vendors of on-line access now provide Web access.
• 146: The distinction between SLIP/PPP access and the `traditional' method is not made clear (not that I have a more clear explanation to offer).

Chapter 9

• 149: CD-ROM's are 5.25 inches, not 3.5 inches.
• 152: PhotoCD is not restricted to images taken from 35-mm film. (Note that the term is a trademark and should be written as one word, capitalized.)
• 152: It may be misleading to speak of adding a session to a CD-ROM after it has been `printed'. This can only be done with CD-ROM's which have been recorded electronically, as opposed to mechanical `pressing' (or `printing').
• 152: The main factor leading to the widespread acceptance of CD-ROM's for reference material is probably their capacity for graphics and audio, not for text.
• 152: A clear distinction should be made between `searching' and `browsing'.
• 152: It seems confusing to me to distinguish `phrase-based searches' and `proximity searches' from `text-word searches'.
• 153: Unix also has a graphical interface.
• 156: The value of natural-language searches should be discussed. It's misleading to suggest that the example question would be answered with a `yes' or `no', or even necessarily be interpreted correctly.
• 159: It's debatable whether Macs have more built-in multimedia features or more friendliness.
• 160: Computer illiterates should put more emphasis on buying good support than on buying a Mac.
• 160: The distinction between home and office requirements is not clear.

Chapter 11

• 182: A bit is the smallest unit of information, period, for computers or otherwise.
• 182: It should be mentioned that an 8-bit byte permits 256 different values. The abbreviation for `byte' is `B'; `b' stands for `bit'. (See also p. 9.) Should perhaps mention that `k' stands for 1000 while 'K' stands for 1024, and that the latter is a power of 2.
• 182-183: The term `disk storage' should be used consistently instead of just `storage', which can legitimately be applied to RAM, ROM, tapes, etc.
• 183, 186: The references to `CPU' and `CPU box' are confusing. The term `system box' would be better.
• 183, 185: A buyer should define software requirements before thinking about hardware.
• 185: Unix is an operating system, not a `specialized network environment'.
• 186: Note that Power Macs run Windows and DOS applications via software emulation, which is very slow.
• 186: The speed of a CPU is determined by much more than just number of bits and clock speed.
• 187: EGA is more powerful than CGA, not less. CGA provides more than one colour; VGA provides 256 colours, not 16.
• 187: Image quality is determined by the number of pixels, not by the number of pixels per inch; `dot pitch' is also important. Refresh rate should be discussed in terms of flicker, not redraw speed. Colour is very important for many applications, not just because it's `easier on the eye'.
• 188: Virtually all keyboards have function keys. A trackball is not a mouse, although the mechanism inside is similar. Touch screens should be mentioned as an alternative input method, certainly more so than voice recognition.
• 189: Thermal transfer should be mentioned in the first list of printer types; it's much more common than LED and LCS. True colour laser printers exist, although they're expensive. Inkjet and laser printers are not impact printers. A discussion of different types of black-and-white printers would be more useful than the emphasis on colour. PostScript should be mentioned as a feature to be considered.
• 196: It should be emphasized more that subdirectories can be deeply nested. This is obscured by the emphasis on the filing-cabinet metaphor.
• 198: Distribution of an application (as opposed to a database) on CD-ROM doesn't reduce hard-disk requirements much because the application must still be installed on the hard disk.