Number 255 - August 2004

Safari Tech Books Online
by Wayne Steen , Q BITS contributing editor Quad Cities Computer Society, June 2004 Q Bits
Safari Tech Books Online (http://www.safaribooksonline) is an electronic reference library for IT professionals, programmers and computer power users. It is a great resource for those who are computer geeks and computer geek wannabes.    Safari Books Online is a joint venture between O'Reilly & Associates and The Pearson Technology Group. Safari gives you online access to the latest and most popular titles from these two leaders in technology based book publishing. There are also a limited number of titles from Microsoft Press. It would be great if Safari Books Online would offer a far more extensive library of Microsoft Press books.    Safari Books Online currently offers access to nearly 2000 books online. One of the great benefits of Safari Books Online is the Search program that allows you to conduct a search of all 2000 books. For example, if you wanted to do a search for Microsoft Excel 2003 then you would find out that 425 sections in 85 books were available. You may want to be more specific in your search and ask about a specific topic in Excel. If you have the time, you may want to look at the sections on Artificial Intelligence. AI is a very interesting topic to examine in more depth.    You can download and store sections of a book onto your hard drive for the duration of your subscription. You may reproduce portions of books in your subscription up to 250 words as long as you give proper credit to the publisher (I do not know how this agreement pertains to charts). A teacher may reproduce up to two sections of a book (again proper credit must be given to the publisher); however, this right is not transferable to your students or another teacher. If you want access to a book and the book is not listed, then you can contact Safari through a Web link on your account page and request the book be added to the library. I have made several requests for books to be added to the Web site.    The book you add to your book-shelf is available from cover to cover. This includes the table of contents, bibliography, and end-notes. The one notable exception is that if a CD comes with the book you must ask the publisher if you can get the CD. You cannot get access to a book's CD through Safari. I do understand how this can be a logistical problem for Safari to offer this service, but many computer books do come with a CD and you should be aware that you will probably not be able to gain access to the CD.    In the Microsoft Office SIG, we have often used Microsoft's excellent Step-by-Step series of books. An important component of the series is that each book comes with a CD full of examples that help you learn by	doing. This is probably why this series of books are not currently available on Safari, because you do not have access to the CD. Subscriptions    There are two plans with Safari Books Online: Safari Max and Safari Basic. I will begin with Safari Max. This plan is $19.99 a month. With Safari Max, you can search the entire Safari library and add up to 10 books to your bookshelf. You may swap old books for new books as your needs change. However, a book must stay on your bookshelf for at least 30 days. You may download five chapters per month. You receive a 30% discount when you purchase O'Reilly books through Safari and a 35% discount on books from Addison-Wesley, Adobe Press, Cisco Press, Hewlett-Packard Press, New Riders, Prentice-Hall, Peachpit Press, Sun Microsystems Press, Sams and Que. Please note that at this time Safari does not offer discounts on Microsoft Press books!    Safari Basic costs $14.99 a month. You can search the entire Safari library and you can have up to 10 books on your bookshelf. You can swap old books for new books, as long as you have had the old book on your bookshelf for 30 days. Both plans allow you to do customize searches to find answers to critical questions by searching their entire database.    Safari Basic does not permit you to download any chapters and you are not eligible for any discounts on computer books you may want to buy from Safari. Conclusion    At the time this article went to press, the Quad Cities Computer Society was trying to negotiate giving our members a free 14-day trial to Safari Books Online. I will be demonstrating Safari Books Online at the Tuesday June 1,2004 Microsoft Office SIG at the Tri-Cities Jewish Center at 7 :00 pm. We have to have ten members sign up before we can sign you up for the 14-day free trial offer. If you are interested in this offer and you are a member in good standing (in other words you have paid your dues) in the Quad Cities Computer Society then please e-mail at pythagoras78@hotmail.com. Please include in your subject heading "Safari Subscription".    Safari Books Online is an excellent service. It does need to have more Microsoft Press titles available and it is expensive. If you are a programmer, involved in IT at your business or consider yourself a power user then you should check out this service. If you buy many computer books this also might be a service that you may want to consider. However, if you are new to computers or only use your computer for basic tasks then you should pass on this service.
Number 255 - August 2004