Reviews and Article Guidelines

The Coastal Area Users Groups invites all members to write reviews on books, hardware and software. If there is a book you've read, a new piece of hardware or cool software you've used, we want to know about it. If you know about what you would like to write a review, but need help getting your hands on it, let us know. CAUG is able to contact many publishers and vendors to get books, hardware and software for you to review. Not only will you be able to keep it, but it's yours FREE!

Facts to always include in review

What category is your product in? (graphics, utility, game, etc.)
Product name and version
Product cost (rebates, special offers, etc.)
Company/manufacturer's name
Company URL (web site) or contact information
Special system requirements (such as special graphics card, Pentium II, etc.)
Describe in simple terms what you liked about the product.
Describe in simple terms what you didn't like about the product.
What is your overall recommendation? Should others buy and use the product or not?

Every review must answer these questions

What does the product promise?
How well does it achieve those goals?
Is it a good value? If so, for whom?

How to submit reviews and articles to Coastal Computer News

Reviews and articles should not exceed 600 words.
Submit reviews or articles as MS Word documents, or in ASCII text (such as Notepad) either as an e-mail attachment or on a floppy disk.
Reviews/articles should be submitted two weeks before the monthly general meeting date. Software, Book or Hardware Reviews should be completed in less than 30 days from the time you obtain the product for review. (If the review is going to be delayed for some reason, please inform the editor, Brian Jacobs, and discuss your proposed schedule.)
Please do not format the text by adding underlines, boldface, indents, justifying type, or use more than one typeface. Also, please do not double-space or use all caps. In addition, be sure the vendor's name and product name are spelled correctly, as well as the text in the article.
Send one copy of your review to Lillie Johnson (Editor) "Coastal Computer News" at lillie07@swbell.net or You can also bring your review to a meeting and give it to Lillie in person.

Suggestions for interesting reviews and articles

Program installations are not necessarily interesting, unless they are unique—for instance, it took eight hours to install, you needed a doctorate degree, or I had to swing chicken bones over my head while saying a special incantation.

Write, about what happened after the installation.

Write for other users. Ask yourself, "What would my friends be interested in knowing about the product and my experience?"
Use personal pronouns, such as you and I, not "one" or "a person."
If you have a scanner, send a JPEG or GIF of the product (from the box, manual cover, etc.) with your review or article. If you use a photo from the products web site get permission first, and please be sure to include trademarks and or copyrights.
After the review or article, please include a couple of sentences about yourself: the type of work you do, how long you’ve been in the club, why you joined a computer group, and anything you think is interesting about yourself. It could be that you just bought a new computer, or you built your first computer, or you just started using a computer, or you just moved to Corpus Christi, etc. (If you have a photo of yourself, it would be great if you would include it. We can use it alongside your review. Members like to see who is doing the review!)

CAUG has a relationship with O'Reilly Publishing in which they will provide us with copies of their books for our review. If they publish a book you would like read and review, please let us know. We'll help you get the book.

Here is what O'Reilly has to say:

Please send a copy of your book review to Marsee ( marsee@oreilly.com marsee@oreilly.com ). Include "Book Review" and the title of the book in your subject line of your email.

You can also send reviews to:

Marsee Henon
O'Reilly & Associates
1005 Gravenstein Highway North
Sebastopol, CA 95472

Besides posting reviews on your user group's site, newsletter, or mailing list, we encourage reviewers to post reviews on their favorite sites such as Amazon, Slashdot, Barnes & Noble, and oreilly.com. To post a review on oreilly.com, just click on the "Reader Review" link on the left of any book page on our online catalog.

O'Reilly's Tips and Suggestions for writing a review:

Include the book's title, author(s), publisher, and price.
Provide the catalog page URL for your book from our book list http://www.oreilly.com/catalog
Include information from the catalog page for each book such as a link to the sample chapter or author articles.
Create a rating system with your members. Be creative. For example, the Alaskan Apple Users Group uses Moose to rate their reviews. Five Moose means "Terrific."
Be honest.
The length is up to you. Reviews can be short and sweet or long and detailed. Do what works best for you.
If you like something in a book, say what it is and why you like it. If you don't like something in the book, say what it is and say why you don't like it. Be as specific as you can--this information is important to other readers.
If something was omitted in the book say what it is and why it is important.
End the review with an overall summary.
In your UG Newsletter or website, mention the O'Reilly User Group discount. Forgot the discount code? Email me, and I'll remind you. (marsee@oreilly.com)
If your members are having trouble writing a review, creating a set of questions that need to be answered might help them get started.
Do what works best for your group.
If you find an error you would like to submit, please go the "Errata" section on the book page from our online catalog.
Have Fun!

Sample Book Review

Mac OS X Hints
Reviewed by Brian Redman,
Lower East Side Mac Unix Users Group

I knew from his www.macosxhints.com web site Rob Griffiths was an honest, hard working, modest and generous guy with an eye for quality and esthetics. No doubt he's also loyal, obedient, brave, thrifty, clean and reverent. I didn't know until I read Mac OS X Hints, the book, that he was a literary genius. Clearly, the Pogue vibes energized Rob's creativity. The writing is entertaining while the hints are novel and valuable. Ignoring the author's suggestion I read the book from cover to cover. It's really nice to read paragraph after paragraph of geek gook and enjoy the text. I frequently got the "what's so hilarious now?" look from wife as I giggled and laughed out loud. I also found myself talking to the book -- "cool, I knew that", "hmm... interesting. I'll have to keep that in mind", "wow!", "OMG! that's how you do that!", etc. The entire range of nerd emotions.

It was clear the book was a winner after reading the preface; The Missing Credits. A clean, honest list of who's responsible, complete with email addresses. The quality is evident before you get to the introduction -- even the blurb "About Pogue Press" was amusing and encouraging. There's no explanation that a paragraph labeled "Tip" is a "Tip" or courier font means it's supposed to look like teletype output. That's refreshing. A book that assumes I can read a book. The cover boasts 500 hints. Leave it to Griffiths to be modest on the cover. There are 563 hints -- any other book would say "Over 500 Hints" or "almost 600 Hints". There's no animal on the cover. More points. This book was so obviously going to be good I wanted to write the review before I finished the introduction. But I wanted to read the book too, so I held off. Of course my impression was not only justified, but enhanced.

Mac OS X Hints is a motivator that familiarizes you with things you might have figured you can accomplish somehow but never took the time to work out. Here, so many gems are in one place, the time you take will reward you with useful techniques you'll pick up immediately and use continually. The hints go into effect as soon as you touch your computer.

As someone who's been using Unix for 25 years, Mac OS X since it was made public, and lives and breathes sites and forums like macosxhints I didn't think I would learn a lot. I was wrong. I picked up a ton of new stuff. In fact, I noted the number of hints in each chapter I found new and interesting (as opposed the ones I already knew about, could easily have looked up, or simply didn't care about -- for instance I skipped the section on OS 9 Classic). A third of the hints (190 of 563) were winners for me. Most of the other two thirds were fun to read anyway and many of them were useful micro refreshers. (I'm using perhaps my favorite new hint while writing this. Why didn't I notice before that highlighting a misspelled word and right-clicking revealed the suggested spelling at the top of the contextual menu, and selecting it replaces the misspelling? Now I use that constantly.)

Mac OS X Hints only gets 5 of 5 stars. Why not 6? Having about 10 times more experience with Unix than Mac OS X and being extraordinarily picky about facts and presentation I wasn't as delighted with the Unix chapters as I was with the rest of the book. They were alright, most of the content even good, but I would quibble with a couple of the facts and some of the wording. Nevertheless I noted 20 hints in those two chapters that tickled my fancy.

There is a lot of information in Mac OS X Hints and you're not going to remember it all but you probably will remember that you read something about a way to do this or that. The book so far has served as an excellent reference volume. The index has lead me to an answer every time, first time and he table of contents lists each hint as well. I wish all the URLs mentioned had been listed in an appendix. But then, I always do.

I've just placed an Amazon order of a dozen copies for my family and closest (geographically) friends. If you're not among them get your own copy. You won't be disappointed.