This book is designed to be browsable.

Depending on how you want to read the book, you can get your information from first-person stories, frequent headlines that tell the gist of each short section, the text itself, or reference sections. We have sidebars of users telling stories, because people learn from personal experiences. (After you’ve seen someone embarrass themselves company-wide by misaddressing their mail, you’ll be sure to check the To: field in your own messages.) So we have users telling about their embarrassing moments and their personal ways of looking at technology. The anecdotes aren’t fluff to cajole you through the material. They are what you need to know. By reading the stories alone, you can get the gist of the material.

Headings that summarize main points and short, standalone sections also encourage browsing. How-to sections are segregated into their own format, so that you can easily skip — or find — specific procedures.

Of course, reading straight through all the chapters is also an option. We hope that when you “dip in,” you’ll find so much of use that you’ll keep reading.

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