Beautiful Bird

From the book entitled: “Beautiful Birds: Their Natural History — Including an account of their Structure, Habits,  Nidification, etc., etc.   Vol. II”

Published in 1855, from the manuscript of the late John Cotton,  author of:

• Flowers from Foreign Lands
• Flowers from the Holy Land
• Flowers and Heraldry
• Favorite Field Flowers

Etc., etc.

With twelve coloured plates, drawn and coloured by James Andrews.

Inside the front cover appears this adverstisement for the book:

The first volume of this work comprised an outline history of the Raptorial Birds, together with that of the Dentirostral tribe of the Insessorial Order. In the present we lay before our readers the remainder of the Insessorial Order, comprising the several Tribes, Fissirostres, Scansores, Tenuirostres, and Conirostres. The whole work will be completed by the publication of the third volume, which will comprehend the Orders Rasores, Grallatores, and Natatores: orders in which are placed several domestic and wild families well known and valued in this country. We, therefore, confidently expect that it will possess, for the majority of our readers, greater interest than the portions already published.

I recently finished reading Alan Jacobs’ biography of C. S. Lewis, The Narnian (which was a gift from my son – Christmas 2005), and decided to sprinkle a few of my observations into the blogosphere.

Let me start at the end, and we’ll talk about the beginning later …

Thirteen year old Roxana Tynan read three sentences from The Weight of Glory (pdf) at the funeral of her father, Kenneth Tynan, in 1980. C. S. Lewis had written these words in 1941 (in the midst of World War II). These are the words Roxana read over her father’s grave :

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.

Facebook is a popular, fast growing, social networking website that combines the best of blogs, online forums, photo sharing, applications, and interaction among friends, and networks of people. The one thing it didn’t have until now was a user’s guide – in book form.

Facebook: The Missing Manual provides a very clear and entertaining introduction to the many fascinating things that Facebook has to offer. Written by E. A. Vander Veer, and co-published by Pogue Press/O’Reilly, in January 2008. (US$19.99) – ISBN 9780596517694

Why am I doing this book review? I met a publicist from O’Reilly publishing on – you guessed it – Facebook, and she asked for volunteers to review the book. So I got the book, and read it over several days on the commuter bus, and found it to be an easy read.

The book is a quality production, from an experienced author — with a comprehensive outline, and clear writing style; full of interesting tidbits, sidebars, and colorful illustrations. It faithfully follows the missing manual formula, with excellent layout and typography — and the result is a first-rate, quality, how-to-manual about getting started with Facebook. Spotrick, a blogger from down under, says the book exudes quality.

Topics covered: How to get started, creating your profile, help in Joining a network (business, geographic, city, country); finding friends, looking for people, college buddies and old acquaintances, viewing your friends, organizing your friends, responding to friend requests (or not); Sending messages to friends, and poking people (a Facebook phenomena). What it means to “write on someone’s wall”. How to stay in touch with friends through status updates, news-feeds, mini-feeds, RSS-feeds, notifications, subscriptions, etc. — and controlling what kind of information other people can see about you (privacy, security, etc.) There is even a whole chapter (chapter 13) dedicated to the topic of Facebook privacy concerns.

Other chapters: Chapter 6 – Participating in groups, finding groups, joining groups, creating groups, and participating in groups. (Note: personal observation of group behavior on Facebook… a lot of people know how to join groups, but very few know how to participate. ) Chapter 7 – Events and calendars; planning and event, or party; finding events, how to RSVP to an event, creating your own events and inviting people to join the event. (Note: I was looking for a little more help in chapter 7 and did not find what I was looking for. I had done a few event announcements to large groups in Facebook, and found that the Facebook software was very buggy — or network congestion at the Facebook server farm caused the trouble on several occasions — and it took three attempts to mail an invitation to all the people in my group (over 900 people), because the system kept timing out. Some things on Facebook work very well with smaller groups; less than 200 people – but not large groups with thousands of people … and I was hoping “the missing manual” would help me out on this.) Chapter 8 – Going shopping, placing an ad, finding stuff, answering ads. (Note: this was something I had overlooked on Facebook, and looks like a feature I need to explore more.) This was a helpful chapter. Chapter 9 – touches on business topics like recruiting people for a business, gathering prospects, looking for a job. Chapter 10 – talks about using Facebook for collaborating on business projects, setting up meetings, exchanging ideas, and exchanging files. Chapter 12 – All about Facebook applications, and customizing your settings. As stated earlier Chapter 13 covers security and privacy issues, and does a reasonable job of explaining how the interface works, and how to adjust your personal profile settings. This chapter alone might be worth the price of the book, if you are concerned about this issue, and are confused or bewildered by it.

Potential audience: This might not be the best book for the millions of people who were already using Facebook (eg, college students – they already know how to use facebook) but it is probably a helpful book for the millions of people who are still joining Facebook. High-schoolers, or college-agers that need to understand how Facebook security actually works, might benefit from this book. But the biggest audience for this book, might be the millions of people over 30 (and the grandma, granddad crowd) that are now joining Facebook in droves. (Personal note: I am a 49 year old grandpa-type.) Lots of older business people might really benefit from reading this book, if they are a little timid about social networking websites, and need some support.

This book is an introduction, or a beginners guide. It does not cover some topics in depth, and does not attempt to cover topics like how to write Facebook applications. (Perhaps OReilly will publish other books like: How to Write a Facebook Application.) This book is a user’s manual; like a tourist guide for someone traveling through Facebook-land. Enjoy the journey.

What other are saying about the book:

Mantex says…

When you’ve posted all those snaps of yourself getting drunk at the parties – did you know that it’s quite difficult to take them down again just before that vital job interview? If you’re going to use Facebook and take it seriously, you need a guidance manual, and there hasn’t been one – until now…. takes you through the whole process, step by step, from registering and creating your profile to joining networks and finding friends. And every one of those steps is spelled out in a commendably clear manner.

Duffbert says in his random musings – recommending this book…

So let’s say you’re someone who hasn’t dabbled much in the Web 2.0 world, and you’re wondering what all this talk of Facebook is about. Or, you’re a parent and you’ve heard media reports of how dangerous Facebook can be for your kids if they’re not careful. If you want to get a overview of the site without getting totally bogged down in the details once you log on, Facebook: The Missing Manual is a good option to pursue. You’ll find out the reality of what Facebook offers, why people find it appealing, and what sort of security matters you should keep in mind as you (or your kids) establish a presence there.

Update, 11-Apr-2008 – the  DWWS group  is now over 3000 members.

Update, 28-July-2008 — the DWWS group now has over 3600 members.

Members are from the following countries, or regions: Australia, Belgium, Belize, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela, etc.

Please join us as we are talk about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ECMA-script web standards in the Facebook discussion forum.

Update, 28-July-2008 — You can read related articles by following the DWWS tag.

• Learned a better way to manage my inbox(es).
• A smarter way to manage my project lists and to-do lists.
• I am better organized and more focused on my goals.
• That’s all for today — I have to run, and Get Things Done!

We’ll come back to this topic in a couple weeks and see what other progress I can report.

You can read the book on-line from several sources. Go ahead and read a few pages — and ask the group any questions you might have.

The RSS 2.0 feed for Pilgrim’s Progress is here.