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Amazon.co.uk Review
While working as the creative for an ISP, thirtysomething Canadian J.D. "Illiad" Frazier enjoyed the banter and humour shared between staff, particularly between the technical and non-technical staff. A lifetime doodler, he scribbled down some of it in the form of cartoons. He passed them around the office. The drawings were (and still are) very basic, but the humour was dead accurate, and his colleagues encouraged him to produce more. Before long, the scribbled cartoons had turned into a phenomenon with a Web site and cult following. In 1999 O'Reilly published User Friendly, and, following on the popularity of that book, Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell continues the tale of life and times at Columbia Internet ISP, with its cast of techies, designers, executives, AIs, hard-core geeks and one cheeky dust-puppy.

Illiad revels in the trappings of techie culture--abundant references to Star Wars, The Hitchhiker's Guide, Tolkien , Quake and Linux ("Stef thinks he's a penguin. Is he all right?"). But there's also humour here for those who aren't white, wired 18-30 year-old males. Illiad gets the way technology is changing the way we live: our curious relationship to spam ("I read it every morning like I read headlines! 'Be wealthy in 30 days!' 'A free turnip!' and 'Babette is waiting for you!' I want Babette to be waiting for me!!"); our habit of hiding behind disembodied digital communication ("I just find that in chat I can be a lot more expressive"); plus a healthy dose of self-deprecation ("You hit it off with A.J.? That's like Angelina Jolie being attracted to Illiad. It would just be wrong.") Smart and quirky, Illiad's cartoons cut through market-speak with laugh-out-loud humour, documenting the idiosyncrasies of a subculture that's moving fast into the mainstream eye.--Tamsin Todd

Book Description
The follow-up to the highly successful first collection of User Friendly comic strips from O'Reilly & Associates, Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell tells the continuing tale 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.

"If you ask 20 people what User Friendly is about, you'll get 20 subtly different answers," says the cartoon's creator, J.D. 'Illiad' Frazer. " Some say it's a cartoon about Open Source; some say it's about the rift between technical and nontechnical staff; others say its about the pain that technical people suffer when dealing with the stubbornly unintelligent; some even say that User Friendly is a cartoon about Internet Workers. User Friendly addresses all those issues, but I don't think that's what it's about, strictly speaking. User Friendly's universe revolves around the simple idea that technology brings out both the best and the worst in people, no matter who they are."

User Friendly reads like Dilbert for the Open Source community. With a massive online following, it provides outsiders a light-hearted 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.

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5 Reviews 5 star:  (3) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review (5 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: Humourous and sits Invisible with my working O'Reilly books, 25 May 2000 By A Customer Some of the cartoons are a bit long, especially when compared to succinct Dilbert. Full of many trueisms and I can sympathise with the Alpha Centauri addict, as I left a copy on my brothers machine and his productivity crashed! An excellent view on the world, although I haven't seen any jobs advertised for those with Experience in World Domination yet. Ideal for M$ hating unix Gurus I eagerly await the network engineers revenge.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: I don't believe it......, 9 Jan 2001 By A Customer I love it. I love it online. I love it in a book. And now I realise that I haven't got the first one. And I must have it!!!! Seriously though, any self-respecting geek (is there such a thing) should have a copy of this.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   3 of 15 people found the following review helpful: Serious techies only need apply..., 13 Mar 2001 By A Customer Lets admit it, this is a techie commic strip and unremarkably American. It follows the life of a group of tech support guys (and one girl), a curious "dust puppy" and an AI program that somehow manages to get transfered into any electrical gadget imaginable. The book manages to enforce every steriotype about techies that has ever been thought up and has introduced a few new ones of it's own. Having worked in tech support myself, I'm sad to say that there will probably be those who do enjoy this kind of humour, but most of the techies around me would find it as I did - boring and a more than a bit unfair.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) › See all 5 customer reviews...		Most Recent Customer Reviews Over 300 strips from 1999: some dated, most timeless "Three steps to completing your initiation as an Evil Genius: 1. Adopt ominous accent." "Checkski." "2. Never, ever smile." "Checkski." "3. Read more Published on 6 Jul 2005 by Michele L. Worley Probably better than the last UFie book Hilarious. Buy it, read it. Just not on public transport. Published on 5 Jul 2000 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 5 customer reviews...