<pre>
Author/s : Cory Doctorow, Rael Dornfest,
J Scott Johnson, Shelley Powers, Benjamin Trott, Mena G Trott
Publisher : O'Reilly
Category : Marginalia
Review by : Frank Carver
Rating : 7 horseshoes</pre>
"Blogging" (the practice of keeping a public on-line journal to record personal thoughts, observations and links), is hot news on the internet these days. Many of the best-known names in the business keep such journals, so it's not surprising that the book publishers want to cash in.
Things in the world of blogging move fast. Minor celebrities rise and fall, new software is continually being released, new jargon is invented. It's hard for a paper book to keep up. There are some aspects of blogging which are gaining some permanancy. Unfortunately, this book only skims those topics, preferring to spend nearly 200 pages describing how to use particular (late 2002) versions of a few blogging tools.
The most incisive and thought-provoking part of the book is the last ten pages - interesting quotes from a range of bloggers. It's the only bit which shows any of the excitement and "buzz" of blogging and gets you wanting to get involved. This is not a bad book. But it's not really the book described in its own advertsing. If you want a rough guide to comparing, installing and using a small selection of the well-known blog software offerings, this book is right for you. If you want a more thoughtful and detailed overview of what blogging is all about, why
you should do it, what the terminology means, or how it works "under the hood", keep looking.
More info at Amazon.com More info at Amazon.co.uk
Just Kidding.
