Amazon.com Review
Most of the current crop of books on Communicator attempt to document every single last feature. Most have trouble doing it in less than 800-1000 pages. If you want something shorter that covers the waterfront,
Using Netscape Communicator 4 is a good choice. The first section does a good job covering the features and capabilities of the Navigator browser. In the second section, topics move on to understanding aspects of multimedia, security, Java and ActiveX. The third section is an overview of what is available beyond the Web: Netcaster channels of "push" media, FTP, Gopher, Finger, Telnet, e-mail with the Messenger program, newsgroups with Collabra, and real-time voice and collaboration abilities with the Conference program. The final section discusses using Communicator's Composer Web editor to create and maintain Web pages. I particularly liked the approach taken in the third section, which helps newer users to understand that the Internet is so much more than the Web itself. There are excellent chapters on the powerful ways bookmarks and histories can be managed. Another highlight is the chapter on the security features of Communicator, which includes an excellent discussion of encryption and personal certificates. The author doesn't toss around terms without explaining them, and his explanations are a study in explaining new and sometimes difficult concepts with the least amount of words. This is not a comprehensive reference tool, but it would probably be used more often.
From the Publisher
Beginning and casual users will find need to know information, covering basic concepts and everyday tasks. - Explains how to create a home page with the editing tools in Netscape Navigator Gold
- Explores new Netscape features, including integrated plug-ins, emails, discussion groups enhancements, offline and mobile support, and more
