The Best of The Joy of Tech

Rating:
Summary: A must have for Mac & Linux Geeks!
Review: As a daily visitor of GeekCulture, the site that the Joy of Tech comic is on, it is great to have some of their best comics on my coffee table to read whenever I want. If you are a Mac or Linux geek (ok windows users will find humor too) this is a must have! Cant wait for volume 2!

Rating:
Summary: MyMac.com Book Review
Review: I must be crazy; I was flamed so badly after my last review of a cartoon book (published on a much less friendly site) that I had to replace my asbestos review suit. 'The Best of Joy of Tech' may be worth the risk.

Of course it's easy to enjoy a cartoon book by a pair of cartoonists that share your prejudices. It is obvious from the cartoons that Nitrozac and Snaggy are Macintosh loving, Linux leaning, Microsoft loathing geeks. Hmmm, sounds like me.

Not that Nitrozac and Snaggy are totally one-eyed. They still have a dig at Apple and Macintosh owners along the way. Unlike quite a lot of cartoons about tech these two also see the more human side, just as likely to make a joke about your cat's relationship to you and the computer as poke fun at LARTing end-users or pointy-headed bosses. Their cartoons are more about living with technology than working with it.

The book reproduces a couple of hundred of 'The Joy of Tech' cartoons from their website, in improved color and resolution. The website features a new cartoon every couple of days. There are also a small number that are original for the book and some funny marginalia in a couple of spots. It also has the matching JoyPoll and a short comment about the cartoon in a 'JoyWorld' section at the back of the book.

I find a fairly large number of the cartoons repeatedly funny and most of the rest worth a chuckle. These two have a good eye for the whimsical, ironic and downright funny side to a wired in, geek life. They even manage to get in a sly reference to geek site Slashdot with a fake O'Reilly book, "Trolling In a Nutshell" with a troll wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "FIRST POST" on the cover and an Introduction by 'Anonymous Coward'.

Oh, that reminds me. The book has a very Wozniak foreword by Steve himself and an introduction by David Pogue that is nowhere near as good as the book (I'm sorry David, but any self-respecting geek [male or female] would rather do almost anything than edit the Windows registry, starting with install a decent operating system and working all the way through to changing jobs, heck, I'd rather sleep with Jobs.)

The book is broken up into various sections, each with a theme. It starts with "Boot-Up" and continues with "4nim4l cr4ck3rs" (most about cats), the whimsical "Geek Love", "Hacks and Cracks" (I loved the couple who want to get housing within 50 meters of a war-chalked wall), "Techie-daze", "How about them *nix" (featuring the luscious 'Linux Lass'), "The Joy of Mac", "Who do you want to poke fun at today?" (You'll enjoy the 'Stress Relief Dartboard'), "Sci-Fi The Comic Frontier" and "Do You think I'm Xexy" before finishing with "The World According to Geek" (with 'The Lord of The Root - One Geek To Rule Them All', the two good looking woman who don't shy away from maths and the Barbie 'DotCom Rescue' CD-ROM game)

If you go to Joy Of Tech you can grab a copy from the authors that has been signed (you even get a chance to ask for a custom inscription) and for an extra fee Nitrozac will even bless your book and attach a lucky sticker. You could go to the O'Reilly page, but since they don't have example cartoons and I don't imagine a cartoon book will ever have errata there isn't much point.

It's not easy to review a cartoon book. Suffice to say that I found the 'toons in this book to be a good variety from amusing through to funny with some that are just a little too true to make me do more than groan. If you've never come across this pair then check out the site and if you like the last few examples then the book will not disappoint(...)

Rating:
Summary: Apple addicts and Linux lovers
Review: Nitrozac and Snaggy have been delighting me on the web for awhile now. So I couldn't wait to get the book. They know just how to poke fun at our operating system obsessions and loathings. The foibles of geekdom exposed.

Keep an eye on your copy though. Mine has almost walked away with friends several times. Since not all the friends were geeks, even technophobes should give it a this book a try.

Rating:
Summary: Apple addicts and Linux lovers
Review: Nitrozac and Snaggy have been delighting me on the web for awhile now. So I couldn't wait to get the book. They know just how to poke fun at our operating system obsessions and loathings. The foibles of geekdom exposed.

Keep an eye on your copy though. Mine has almost walked away with friends several times. Since not all the friends were geeks, even technophobes should give it a this book a try.

Rating:
Summary: Coolest comic book ever!!!!
Review: Nitrozac and Snaggy, of the ultra cool GeekCulture.com have really hit the nail on the head with their book. The long wait for the book was well worth it. Each page looks absolutely beautifull, and the printing is spectacular. The introductions by David Pogue and The Woz are great too! And the lexicon at the end is very nice, for us "insiders" who post on the boards there :).
The comics are the best of the ones I can remember (all of them) and each page gave me many a chuckles.

Rating:
Summary: Geek Humour at it's best
Review: Snaggy and Nitrozac show their teeth in this wonderful display of Geek Comedy. Whether you're a geek, or not, you can't help but laugh at the comic misfortunes of Windows users, Linux users and Mac users alike as they try to live in a world full of people who have normal sleep patterns, and have no idea what it's like to have a 3:00 AM call from your boss screaming at you begging to know why the third line of the second paragraph on page 5 of the online catalog isn't bold, or why the server is returning an error. Prepare to stretch your laughing muscles when you buy this book. A must have for all geeks. Makes a great gift, and will never let you down when you need a pick me up. Buy two, because surely you'll want to give on to someone you love.

Rating:
Summary: It's awesome!
Review: The dead-tree debut of the popular online comic "The Joy of Tech," by Canadian artists Nitrozac and Snaggy, is a terrific introduction to the comic for the uninitiated and a must-have for Superfans and just plain ordinary fans. Featuring a foreword by Steve "The Woz" Wozniak and an introduction by David "Missing Manual" Pogue, this collection of cartoons features geeks, aliens, cats, Macintosh, Apple, Steve Jobs, Tux the Linux Penguin, Klingons, cartoon babes that'll leave geeks everywhere saying, "I'd hit it!", and much more! I also appreciated the reproduction of the original JoyPolls at the back of the book, together with the "liner notes" for the featured comics. An all-around winner!