Issue Number 24 - May 2000

JAKOB NIELSEN has just released a major new work on web design and usability. It features lots of tips and suggestions for making your web site more efficient. He shows you what works, what to avoid, and where other people go wrong - including some quite famous sites. He is renowned for his forthright opinions, and he pulls no punches here. It's a richly illustrated book, which has been many years in the writing. And it has been well worth the wait. What I particularly like is the fact that he has plenty of suggestions which beginners can adopt - as well as more complex advice for advanced users. If you are interested in web design, this is one you should not miss. Full review and details at --

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/nielsen.htm

PKZip News
You may never have heard of Phil Katz, but the chances are you've used the product he's known for. Back in 1986, Katz designed a simple but effective program that compressed files to a fraction of their original size. He called it PKZip, using his own initials for the name.

The program was a massive shareware hit, and ZIP quickly became the industry standard compression format. More dreamy innovator than businessman, Katz was never able to fully capitalize on his creation, and sadly he recently died at the age of only thirty-seven. His passing was largely ignored, but his legacy lives on. Nowadays, most files downloaded from the Internet bear the suffix .zip.

Source - CNET Online

Design Writing Research
Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller are partners in a New York company which gives itself the slightly odd title 'Design Writing Research'. They have produced a collection of their writings on topics as varied as the history of punctuation, the depiction of race in US newsprint, and even the application of structuralist theory to typography. It's a very elegant and witty book, beautifully designed and printed - and amazingly cheap. This is one for lovers of design, type, media studies, and good quality printing.

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/lupton.htm

Literature and the Internet
Amazon stands corrected! LAST MONTH we featured a review of a new resource guide which aroused a lot of interest. However, when newsletter reader Kathryn Smith tried to order from Amazon.co.uk, she found it had been WRONGLY PRICED at £35.95. She fired off a warning shot across the bows of Amazon.co.uk, who have now reduced the price to £15.99. The guide includes a useful annotated list of sites devoted to resources, literary journals and individual writers - from Aeschylus and Albee to Woolf and Yeats. And it also has some interesting reflections on the culture and politics of hypertext.

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/browner.htm

Remember DOS?
Do you still use DOS? I brought up the black screen to format a disk the other day [don't ask] and wanting a special command, went to 'Help'. It wasn't there. Apparently Help was taken out during the merge with Win95. But don't worry: there's a complete list of commands and how they are used at --

http://www.easydos.com/dosindex.html

Books and their Enemies
John Cleland was arraigned before the Privy Council in 1750 and his book 'Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' (Fanny Hill) condemned. Cleland explained that he had written it to alleviate his poverty and the president of the Council, who happened to be related to Cleland, granted him a pension of £100 a year on one condition - that he wrote no more erotic books. Cleland sold the copyright of 'Fanny Hill' for a mere £20 and his publisher is supposed to have made £20,000 from it.

Source - BookEnds

How Websites are Discovered

Banner ads	1%
Targeted email	1.2%
TV spots	1.4%
'By accident'	2.1%
Magazine ads	4.4%
Word-of-mouth	20%
Random Surfing	20%
Search Engines	46%

Source - IMT Strategies

Boolean searches
When using search engines, you can increase the relevance of the information returned by using 'Boolean operators'. These are the AND - OR - PLUS terms we have all read about at one time or another. I don't know about you - but I can never quite remember which term does what. So, it was a relief to learn that there is a quick tutorial available.

http://www.newsbank.com/whatsnew/boolean/