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Title BotGuide: The Internet's Hottest Tools That Work the Web for You Authors Michael Wolff and Peter Rutten Publisher HarperEdge http://www.harpercollins.com/ Copyright 1999 ISBN 0-06-251611-6 Pages 269 Price $19.95

A Holiday Shopping Tip

BotGuide, written by Michael Wolff and Peter Rutten, is one of those computer books with a shelf life of about three weeks. I'll hurry through this review so you have time to read it before it's out of date.

BotGuide has 10 chapters:

• What's a Bot: Frequently Asked Questions
• The Daily You: Getting Personalized News
• Intelligent Shoppers: Let Your Robot Do the Walking
• The Automated Web: Bots That Do Your Work for You
• Digital Secretaries: Robots That Help Run Your Daily Life
• Intelligent Money Managers: Bots That Help You with Your Finances
• Robots Around the House: Bots That Help You Get a Job, a Home, a Life
• Digital Columbuses: Bots That Help You Navigate the Web
• Motormouths and Jokes: Bots for Fun and Chatting
• Public Bots: Bots That Keep You Informed about the Public Sector

and consists largely of chatty, vernacular capsule summaries of various web sites out there and the features they offer.

BotGuide is the perfect holiday gift for that office mate who keeps sending you "Ten Best" lists and other tired jokes excerpted for the ten thousandth time from the Internet, or for anyone else who hasn't yet escaped their adolescence and still believes a Bot can help you Get a Life. I'm giving my review copy to my 11-year-old daughter. I hope I'm not insulting her intelligence.

-- Jack Woehr

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Explanation of ERCB rating scale: No stars = unacceptable, 1 Star = marginal, 2 Stars = average, 3 Stars = above average, 4 Stars = exceptional.