The Best of the Joy of Tech

By Nitrozac and Snaggy

Book Overview

Frustrated and frazzled by technology? Or perhaps your cynicism is starting to wane? The Joy of Tech is just the boost you need to get a fresh and funny look at the geek world and restore your sense of humor along the way. With a style that's simultaneously retro and modern, smart and sexy, The Joy of Tech comics poke fun at the latest cultural and technological trends, including those mired deep within the recesses of the IT world. From geeks to corporate giants to the funny world of Macintosh(R) culture, nothing is sacred, and The Best of The Joy of Tech will have you laughing at it all. This book is a collection of the very best from The Joy of Tech online series, the hilarious technology-centric comics created by the dual processing powers of Nitrozac and Snaggy. Long a favorite of those in the know--from the techies in the trenches to those who lead and shape the IT industry--these comics are appearing for the first time in the time-proven and stable "book" interface. The Best of the Joy of Tech features several new, never-before-seen comics, exclusive notes from the artists about their work, an appendix of the JoyPolls, a lexicon of JoyWords, and an introduction by David Pogue, bestselling author and creator of O'Reilly's Missing Manual Series. Printed in glorious full color, it'll be the one thing on a techie's desktop guaranteed not to crash, freeze, or go "poof " The Best of the Joy of Tech will be a welcome addition to any techie's library of geeky books. Amid the often mind-numbing brain fodder of coding how-tos, user manuals, and hardware reviews, The Best of The Joy of Tech is an oasis of top-notch humor and images sure to refresh the mind's page and reboot the will to live. The Joy of Tech celebrates our love of technology, as well as the frustrations we have with it. It empowers everyone--from cubical workers to those who work at home, from teenagers and students to full-time IT geeks, to get the last laugh on technology. Includes a foreword by the legendary Steve Wozniak, creater of Apple Computer.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596005784
• ISBN13: 9780596005788
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

MyMac.com Book 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

It's awesome!

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!

A must have for Mac & Linux Geeks!

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!

Geek Humour at it's best

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.

Coolest comic book ever!!!!

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.