Four OS/2 2.0 Books: A Comparative Review
     by John Wager 

     10 MINUTE GUIDE TO OS/2 2.0, OS/2 IN THE FAST LANE, INSIDE OS/2 2.0, 
     and USING OS/2 2.0

     The small 10 MINUTE GUIDE TO OS/2 2.0 (Alpha Books, 192 pages, 
     $10.95, ISBN 1-56761-000-5) promises that each of its 23 chapters or 
     "lessons" will take about 10 minutes to go through, bringing you "up 
     to speed in about half a day."  It provides step-by-step instructions 
     in doing the things that I wanted to do when I installed OS/2:  How 
     to add fonts, how to cut/paste from a DOS window to an OS/2 window, 
     what the "Workplace Shell" is or what an "object" is.  An 11-page 
     index helps find topics of interest.

     OS/2 IN THE FAST LANE (New Riders Publishing, 224 pages, $14.95, 
     ISBN 1-56205-126-1) is very similar to the 10 MINUTE GUIDE.  It 
     offers "task lists that walk you through over 100 of the most 
     important OS/2 skills you need to know."

     Of these two, I found the 10 MINUTE GUIDE better than the FAST LANE 
     book in three respects:  The 10 MINUTE GUIDE was easier to follow, 
     gave a more complete explanation of things, and answered more of the 
     questions I had about OS/2 when I started using it.  As an example, 
     I had several ATM fonts I wanted to install into OS/2.  The on-line 
     documentation/help/information about OS/2 that came with it didn't
     have a simple, one-place explanation of how to do it. 
     
     Looking up "fonts, adding" in the 10 MINUTE GUIDE directed me to a 
     clear two-page explanation of the process.  Looking up "fonts" in 
     the FAST LANE book had nothing like that; how to add fonts was listed 
     in the index under "customizing," not "fonts."  In reading the 10 
     MINUTE GUIDE, I frequently found an answer to exactly the question 
     I had wondered about.  

     For a much longer, detailed look at OS/2, you might consider either 
     INSIDE OS/2 2.0 (New Rider Publishing, 864 pp, $34.95, 
     ISBN 1-56205-045-1) or USING OS/2 2.0 (Que Corporation, 472 pp, 
     $24.95, ISBN 0-88022-863-6). Both are intended to give much more 
     information and suggestions than the first two books.  They go into 
     much more depth about installation, integration of programs, the OS/2
     "applets," and more. 

     Of the two longer books, I preferred INSIDE OS/2 2.0.  It is almost 
     twice as big for only $10 more, and has information about things 
     the other book doesn't cover at all, like a whole chapter on writing 
     REXX batch programs.  (REXX is more than "batch" commands; the book 
     has a 10-line example that calculates square roots.)  Another 
     example of the difference: INSIDE OS/2 2.0 has about 50 pages on 
     'tweaking' DOS settings for best performance.  The USING OS/2 2.0
     book devotes two pages to the same information. INSIDE OS/2 2.0 also 
     has a 201-page command reference, four times the length of the command
     reference of the other book.

     By the way, despite the fact that these titles are published by 
     three different publishing companies, ALL of these publishers have 
     the exact same address in Carmel, Indiana: 11711 N. College Ave.  
     Must be a busy place!

     Author Information:  John Wager is a professor of philosophy at Triton
     Community College.  He has been running OS/2 2.0 since it was 
     introduced last April.