A web-based seminar is offered to introduce the service and go over its functions, with an opportunity for an interactive Q&A session. As it so happens, these are run weekly, and I got my account info just after one. So, I made sure I could log in, looked at the general info, and picked at the edges while I waited for the next seminar. I did a little playing with general features and experimented with searching and the like (the acid test is to put in some general IT term and count the number of hits). [I wonder if there is a record for this, or more likely a threshold on the number of hits returned. Either way, you'll find quite a few hits for most current technologies.] I was pretty impressed by the number of hits, as well as the diversity of the books available. It was then that I got a better feel for the number of publishers who currently have material available through the service, for example, and how many of their books were available through the service.
[In reality, the interface is straightforward, so any user comfortable with online tools won't need the intro ... in fact, it's probably best to run into a wall beforehand, and then you can ask about your issues in the Q&A session at the end. I listened to the session but didn't follow along with the online program, as it uses a facility which I didn't have an opportunity to download, and then defang my system to be able to successfully install and use it ... more on that later.]
So, I go through a process of selecting the book and appear to be going through the motions, but I don't see the book showing up when I get done. I suspect it might be a page caching issue or something similar, but after a few wiggles I suspect it's really not there. I check with my ORA contact regarding the issue (maybe something is messed up with my trial subscription, perhaps?), and she directs me to Safari support (they have their own CS and TS staff).
To make a long story short, I have a habit of diasabling most browser capabilities that I find remotely offensive, I use proxies that do some pruning, I disable popups, scripts, and almost everything else under the sun. I was also using "non-new" browsers besides. When everything was said and done, popup disabling conspired to prevent me from getting the requisite popup which you need to "OK" in order to put a book in your bookshelf. I never saw the popup, and the page that is displayed in the browser window gave no indication that the process didn't go through or failed somehow ... it was basically the same page (in the main panel) as it was before.
So, I got my first taste of Safari TS, which is something I don't often do with a consumer online service like this. While there is phone support (which turned out to be highly accessible), I used email to submit my issue regarding the bookshelf add. TS was fairly responsive (even as I would write them at the end of the day on the East coast, while they are on the West coast). It didn't take them long to suggest where the problem might lie, which left me with the issue of how to work around it; in the meantime, the CS/TS people were *quite* helpful and accomodating. (Privately, I might admit how willing they were to help me out.) In the end, I jumped onto another system with looser web access, grabbed Google Hacks in virtuo, and started thumbing through it.
While I was in contact with the Safari CS/TS people, I did mention my comments and concerns about the service ... while the service is not very new (not that I had heard of it, but I believe it is over two years old now), they seemed to receive my comments well. Perhaps there will be some changes in the coming months in response to my experiences and comments? [Only time will tell.]
I tried accessing the pages (much like the search facilities) with old browsers I use, like old NS, old Opera, lynx/links, etc.. Outside of changing certain params (like the "User Agent," as you probably do by default anyway), the page access seemed to work fine. At one point, it looked like I pasted my clipboard buffer into lynx while on the site, which created some interesting effects. Ultimately, my account was temporarily disabled! I guess they do that to avoid abuse, DoSes, and the like. I believe that once things cooled off I was able to jump back on and move around (e.g., without a filing to some appelate court). [It's one thing to watch, whether on Safari or not: watch out for paste buffer dumps into any system with single-key commands or accelerators. ;^> ] Speaking of accelerators, they warned that using some web accelerators might also trigger this defense mechanism, so if you use any facilities like that, you might want to configure bypasses for Safari. The same would hold true of some facility which might attempt to "dump" a complete copy of the book in some automated fashion.]
I forged ahead, nevertheless ... again, no big problems were encountered. The interface is reasonable and easy enough to use.
While a few hits had a high relevance, there were quite a few hits on the search I was attempting. You might think this would be a good thing ... well, it is and it isn't. ...
Note that in Safari, you need to employ a little strategy: you can't just look at every book in the place (it's more like a bookstore than a library, if you will). So, when you get a hit on a search, it shows you a small snippet of context for the section in which the match was found. You can see the full text of books in your bookshelf, but until you add them to your bookshelf, you have just that sliver to view. (Sometimes I found it a little tough to wade through more tangential matches, if the preamble to the section doesn't say much about the topic for which you are searching, for example.)
So, just take them all out and look at them! That sounds like a plan, except that your bookshelf is of a finite size (mine was 10 books, I believe), and you must hold a book for a minimum of 30 days. So, if you have 50 hits, you can't take all 50 books out and scan through them -- well, you can of course, but it will take you 5 months to do it. (That was a bit longer than I was willing to take with my immediate service issue.)
I was at a crossroads, and opted not to fill my bookshelf with a whole bunch of books which mentioned innd, in order to try to rectify a problem requiring an immediate solution which was not likely to be found in the more general references I found through the search. (And, further, was not a topic I would likely be looking at for another couple of years, much less through the month.) In the end, I think it was the correct conclusion: I had access to paper copies of some and they confirmed it. If it had been a newer innd version, a more generic issue, or something for which there was a specific server hack, though, I would have been in great shape. In this case, it was an obscure issue stemming from the old config of the old version of innd, and I had to wade through it without 10 books of support.
In another general sense, it is quite handy to be able to thumb through new releases, many of which are available on Safari immediately following their release. With Safari you can be safely several months ahead of your local public reference library.
So, stay tuned for the next installment, when I delve a bit deeper into the service, once I have spent some time really exercising the system.
The other obvious advantage is that you can "pick up" a book, look at it for a while -- even if only a month -- set it down and grab another in trade ... likely another trick which would be handy for the consumer but not welcome by the bookstores. Admittedly, I have purchased paper copies of books to which I have access through Safari since I've had access to it: for some things, there is no substitute for the paper, if you know what I mean. That said, full text searches are a lot easier with the online version than with the paper one! I have found the search feature a handy way to find things I have on my desk in print, which weren't to obvious from in the ToCs or indices. You also have the option of previewing a book do decide if you want to buy a paper copy of it.
Until next time ...
And for the record, no, I am not a paid spokesman for the Safari people,
for O'Reilly, or anyone else who I mentioned above (AFAIK). I don't
own stocks in any of them [discretely], and who knows where my
retirement money is, if I still have any after 2001.
Donations are welcome though! Please send blank checks to: ____________
(Kidding.)
I will acknowledge that the O'Reilly people are very accomodating to the User Group communities (and I happen to like a number of their books too) -- that's about as much bribery as one will find. [This falls somewhere between full disclosure and a shameless plug, I believe.]
(weak disclaimer) We know that business names, service names, product names, etc. are often trademarked ... trademarks are owned by their owners.