ISBN 1-56592-673-0   Price £9 UK approximately
J.D.  Frazer
Hundreds of cartoons in 126 pages
 

Review

    If you are one of those people who has spent many hours of their life in a call centre trying to sort out enquiries from home users of MS Windows then this book is for you.  User Friendly is set in an ISP called Columbia Internet.  There are many cartoon examples of life inside an ordinary internet service provider.  If you have worked in call centre support then you should at least have a look at this book.

There are some fine examples of real people but shown in cartoon form.  The crud puppy at page twenty-two reminded me of a local ISP here in Sheffield.  One of the other classics is the advert for Microspaz BackOrifice at page seventy-three.  Later on there is a superb example of what to avoid in the shape of the Anatomy of an Anti-Geek.  This is a fine example of the sort of humour that I am trying to explain.......
 

As you can see, it's not easy to explain a mixture of visual gags and other things ?

In a world that is as insane as this one is you should try to get hold of this book and read it in the vain hope that you will retain something of what is left of your sanity.  If you want to see the online version have a look at.....    http://www.userfriendly.org  and also.....   http://www.userfriendly.org/static.   There are many examples of true life stories and also those things which the sys admin was only able to claim happened and not prove :-)
 

Review by Richard Ibbotson