Updates to "History of Life"

[cowen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

UPDATES TO HISTORY OF LIFE

I am setting up a system for irregular updates to my text, 
History of Life (Blackwell Science, 1994). I propose that it will 
work in two ways.

First, updates would be posted on the World-Wide Web server at the 
Department of Geology at the University of California, Davis, for 
access by anyone with a "browser" program. Mosaic, Netscape, and 
Lynx are the three I am familiar with. Mosaic and Netscape work on 
several platforms, I believe, and Lynx is a very fast, efficient 
text-only browser on DEC machines like a VAX.

How to do it:
Set your browser program to open up the URL:
http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu
Open up the list of faculty to Richard Cowen
Open up the list of my books
You will find an "Updates" marker next to History of Life, 2nd edition

The updates are arranged two ways: chronologically, as they were 
posted, so you will know which are new and which you've already seen; 
and by chapter, so you can go quickly to any topic that you are 
interested in.

Once you have got into the files once, your browsing program allows 
you to insert your own electronic bookmark at a place you'd want to 
return to instantly, without going through the click-through-the-pages 
routine.

Second, I realize that not everyone has a browse-capable computer, 
or finds it convenient to use the Web. For those folks, I can send 
out updates as they are completed, by normal E-mail. If that's what 
you prefer, please write me an E-mail letter asking me to do that. 
I won't send you the nit-picky updates-of-updates for typos and slight 
misphrasings, but you'll get each one as it is first posted.

Eventually, I may be able to use the Web fully, posting drawings or 
diagrams that are either non-copyright or my own copyright, but that 
is a whole new skill that I haven't learned yet, and would take a 
whole new level of time commitment. 

Let me know if you find this useful! 

Richard Cowen
rcowen@ucdavis.edu