The release date on my book, The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh, draws ever closer. The 650-some pages of text and the disk are out of my hands and should ship by the 24th of September. The book should be available to bookstores several days after that, although it may not make it on the shelves quite that quickly, so you may have to request it.

I'm pleased about the contents of the disk, and I'd like to thank Hayden, my publisher, for going to bat for me on this one. Along with InterCon's free InterSLIP, QUALCOMM's free Eudora, Dartmouth's freeware/shareware Fetch, and the free TurboGopher from the University of Minnesota, the disk includes version 2.0.2 of MacTCP from Apple. You can retrieve everything else for free via the Internet, but the only legal way to acquire MacTCP 2.0.2 is to buy it or a product that includes it. I think I can safely say that my book will be the cheapest way to get MacTCP, given that the book will cost around $25 and MacTCP itself costs $52 with shipping if you order from MacWarehouse.

I'm especially happy about licensing MacTCP for the book, since many people seem to be seeking for it these days. Apple hasn't exactly made MacTCP readily available, and frankly, the documentation that comes with the package clearly wasn't designed for the end user. I figure you can look at it two ways. Either you get a neat book free when you buy MacTCP for half-price, or you get a $52 program free when you buy a $25 book. Either way, the net community wins, which remains one of my major goals in life.