User Friendly tells the story of Columbia Internet, "the friendliest, hardest-working, and most neurotic little Internet Service Provider in the world." Take three techs, two salespeople, a designer, two executives, a couple of administrative staff, mix in a mischievous Artificial Intelligence and a "dust puppy" born from the innards of a mega server, put them all together in a crowded little office, and you have the makings of one of the most off-beat, original, and funny comic strips to come along in years.
User Friendly reads like Dilbert for the open-source community. Already in syndication in The National Post, one of Canada's leading national newspapers, and with a massive online following, it provides outsiders a lighthearted look at the world of the hard- core geek, and allows those who make their living dwelling in this world a chance to laugh at themselves.
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The cover images for User Friendly were designed by Illiad. Kathleen Wilson designed and produced the cover layout using QuarkXPress 3.3. Alicia Cech designed and produced the interior layout using QuarkXPress 3.3, the Monotype Gill Sans font, and the Comics CarToon font. Madeleine Newell was the production editor. The images in the book were prepared for print by Robert Romano and Rhon Porter using Adobe Photoshop 5.
Although a bit dated, containing strips related to the Y2K craze here and there, this little book is still otherwise as funny and timely as any commentary on the computer industry could be. The X-Men and Borg references are absolutely hysterical. If you work in a tech job, you should be reading User Friendly.
9/19/2003
(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)
5.0
User Friendly Review
By George Woolley, Oakland.pm
from Undisclosed
Comments about oreilly User Friendly:
Excellent. Hilarious.
This is the first of the incredibly funny dead tree compilations
of the User Friendly on-line comic strip.
It recounts part of the saga of a cast of characters
involved with a fictional ISP called Columbia Internet.
Until late August 2003,
I really knew zilch of User Friendly and Columbia Internet.
Somehow I had missed the daily strips and three paper compilations. :(
Then a perceptive friend sent me email
which directed my attention to the User Friendly series.
Soon I found myself addicted to the strip
much as some of the characters in the strip are addicted to caffeine.
The fourth book "Even Grues Get Full"
is supposed to arrive at my house very soon. :)
If you are a geek, or have geek tendencies or wish to grok geeks,
get this book. ;)
If you want, check out
my somewhat longer review.
10/25/2000
1.0
User Friendly Review
By alan ledwick
from Undisclosed
Comments about oreilly User Friendly:
y'all seem to like this book quite a bit, but i'm with the other guy that didn't think it was all that funny. some of the stuff is amusing, yeah, but this just isn't for me. not sure why y'all think that someone that doesn't like it must be lame. sounds like lame reasoning to me. ah well. i might read the next one to see if it ever gets any funnier, but i sure ain't buying it.
