Issue Number 34 - October 2000

The Internet: A Writer's Guide
Last weekend I went to an excellent presentation on how writers can find new markets and explore new genres by using the Internet. It was given by Jane Dorner, author of 'The Internet: A Writer's Guide' which we reviewed earlier this year. Jane has since updated the valuable database of resources which form the backbone of the book - which also has its own web site. If you are a journalist, a researcher, or a writer of fiction or non-fiction, you will find her advice and resources extremely useful. I recommended the book to several friends when it first appeared, and they have all been pleased with it.

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/dorner-2.htm

Digital Darwinism
The sub-title of this book is - 'Seven Breakthrough Business Strategies for Surviving in the Cutthroat Web Economy'. As you will guess from this, it's one of those tough commercial self-help books - but in fact the advice it gives on e-commerce is quite sound. It takes the 'new' line on economic survival - such as the idea that you should be prepared to charge different prices for products according to how well they are selling. Guest reviewer David Gauntlett describes it as one of the best e-commerce manuals he has come across. Details at -

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

Implausible Book Titles #1
In 1978, the winner of the most improbable book title was 'Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice' (University of Tokyo Press). Runners-up included: 'Ethics of Bureaucrats', 'Fight Acne and Win', and 'Macrame Gnomes'. '100 Years of British Rail Catering' would have stood a fighting chance had it not been disqualified for misrepresentation.

Source: http://www.bookends.co.uk

Using the Internet
This is the first in a new series from Computer Step, who specialise in cheap, cheerful, and clearly-written guides. It covers everything from getting on line and understanding the basics of email and web browsing, through to the basics of web site design and even e-commerce. It comes in the pocket book format which has become so popular of late. It's a good value beginner's guide, and well-illustrated.

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/austin-3.htm

Poink! Splat! Pow! Sound Effects
If you need a few sound affects, there's a site which searches for them. You can narrow your search by file type (AIFF, AU, or WAV) the number of channels (mono or stereo), or maximum size (16K all the way up to 2MB.)

Searching for 'cow' found 87 results. Using the 'Find Sounds Like This One' button will give you a list of sounds similar by waveform to the one you have chosen. (So you do a similar sound search for a cow sound and get, among other things, a Pee Wee Herman sound.)

[For UK readers, Pee Wee Herman is the US middle-aged kid's TV presenter whose career was halted abruptly following his indulgence of George Michael-type behaviour in a cinema. C'est la vie.]

http://www.findsounds.com

Electronic Scholarly Journals
There is an interesting development in the field of academic writing. Scholars can now put their research papers directly onto the Internet. So why bother with printed journals, which are very expensive and take a long time to produce?

Well, it seems like most of us still like to have the printed version in our hands. But can this continue much longer - at a time of falling subscriptions and spiralling costs?

If you want to know the hard evidence behind these issues, or you are interested in one of the lesser-known but burgeoning forms of electronic publishing - then you should find Carol Tenopir's and Donald King's book a goldmine of hard facts for the debate.

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

HTML and XHTML - The Definitive Guide
Writing web pages has reached a point where authors need more control over the appearance of what appears on screen. Anyone who has written in HTML knows that it can be very frustrating getting the layout of your page to look attractive. There is now a new system of coding called XHTML [extensible HTML] which will take web authoring into this new age. And true to form, O'Reilly Associates have issued an extremely thorough manual which covers all aspects of the new code (and updates the existing HTML standard at the same time). If you want the latest set of codes, plus lots of working examples and a valuable resource -

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/muscian4.htm

Mantex - PO Box 100 - Manchester M20 6GZ
Tel: 0161 432 5811 - Fax: 0161 443 2766
Email: info@mantex.co.uk - Web: www.mantex.co.uk
Copyright © Mantex 2001