Hardware Books

This book goes beyond other computer books, including the Dummies' series, to explain the stuff in plain English, with a lot of humor thrown in. I particularly liked the chapter on helping kids think, using the PC--critical thinking..something that's clearly lacking these days...

Despite the title, this book's designed for Dads AND Moms, and it's a good one...well written with a sense of humor...it breaks jargon down to human English..Best chapters were on Developing Critical Thinking Skills, using the PC; Raising a Computer Smart Daughter and Keeping Kids Safe on the Internet...There's also a good primer on buying a personal computer. Any parent wanting to guide their child through the digital age should pick up this book.

Excellent down to earth resource for computer ignorant and/or illiterate parents who would like to try to keep up with their children when it comes to the computer.

The difinitive edition of Ralf Brown's Interrupt List, PC INTERRUPTS lists every DOS and BIOS interrupt call I have ever needed. This book should reside on the shelf of anyone interested in low-level code, especially assembly. -nick black

Nobody else could write a book like PC Interrupts, than Ralf Brown & Jim Kyle. This book is not only a reference, it is written from programmers for programmers and all the needs of an experienced developer. The title speaks for itself, the book is a milestone in Computer Literature and traces a long period of general PC development. May be, that the most of the stuff is dated, but anyway there's often enough a good reason to read some and the enormous information impact makes the book valuable for every programmer, today and forever. I recommend the book particularly!

The classic Brown-Kyle book, this book is just great it has all the interrupts and third party calls info that every programmer needs I can't say anymore about this book just that it rocks!

I AM TAKING A CLASS IN COMPUTER REPAIR, AND I NEEDED A BOOK TO WORK WITH, MY SCHOOL BOOKS. I LIKE TO READ YOUR BOOKS. BECAUSE IT READLY HELPS ME. AND THIS IS A VERY EASY BOOK TO READ AND IT HELPS TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO FIX COMPUTER WORKS. AND HOW YOU CAN UP GRADE YOUR OWN PC. THAT IS THE BEST BOOK FOR ANY ONE WHO WANTS TO FIX A PC ON THERE OWN. I AM VERY HAPPY THAT I FOUND THIS BOOK. THANK YOU FOR HAVING THIS BOOK FOR PEOPLE TO FIX THERE OWN PC. I ALSO WANT TO THANK RUTH MARAN FOR ALL HER BOOKS. SHE HELPS WITH PICTURE AND WRITING THAT ANY ONE CAN UNDERSTAND.

for those newbs like i was who are scare of upgrating a pc or repair it well this books is perfect for you it has so many pages that show you how to do all the above things with out reading a lot yeas read less and learn more i got to tell with this book i reapir and upgrate my pc sometime not like before but also help you to build one
i have just one sujesstion BUY IT!!!

I have checked several "pc upgrade" books which are in great details but vague. This one has only 225 pages and the best thing of this book is that it practically shows you with images rather than giving you more technical info to make it more complicated. That's why I found it so easy....! to follow. If you really want to learn how to repair or upgrade your pc, then save some money and buy this one.

Well written and easy to understand. This book will have you enjoying Photoshop Elements in very short order. I do believe this is the instruction manual that should have been packaged with the soft ware.

Are you looking for a book about the Mac version of Photoshop Elements 6? Due to the delay between the shipping dates of the Windows and Mac versions, I wasn't able to include Mac-specific information in this title. However, 95% of the Windows book applies to the Mac version of the program, down to the interface elements. The major difference is that the Windows version uses the Organizer to catalog and organize photos, while the Mac uses Bridge CS3 to do the same.

So if you're looking for Visual QuickStart Guide instruction for the Mac version of Elements 6, this edition delivers it.

I have used this series of books for a long time. I like the many graphics and simple explanations. It is easy to follow and gives you the information you need to use this program.

Extremely helpful even to a complete phobe like me. I had never found a book that I could actually sit down and read until this one.

Omigod. Someone finally wrote a computer book that isn't 8000 pages long. It's like the first 100 pages missing from every other computer book. Highly recommended for everyone that really wants to start at the very very beginning. I loved it, and I have to guard my copy with my life. Get your own!

This book explains everything in language we can understand. It starts with taking the computer out of the box and even shows you where the plugs go. It's a great tool for people who have a phobia against computers. It is so simple even my grandaughter could understand it.

If you know XP Home and XP Pro, but you either need to know more about it for home use, or more for tech support, this book is a great item.
Covers all conceive-able aspects, and then some...; very good section on networking in a wireless environment, especially if you are combining a wired and wireless home network that you need to lock down.
Now all I have to do is find out where the resource sharing sections are ( As in shared devices ).... lots to do, now even more; gives excellent scope for expanding your ideas for a better home network.

Recently I was doing some consulting for a company and performing a Windows XP Professional Rollover and upgrade. I was also teaching a class for A+ and the new objectives which has XP questions. This book while not a certification specific book, handled both jobs very well.

What this book is is more than how to configure the desktop and change the background or setup XP to look like the "Classic" windows interface. While it does all that it also takes you through security and networking and what I found to very interesting is that it discusses the Home and the Professional versions as well as the 32 and 64 bit versions.

There are step by step procedures throughout the book to help you learn to perform different operations, such setting up the ASR process, dual booting Windows 9X and XP and how to do searches for people, computers and more.

There is a great deal of pictures and diagrams in the book; however I think that some of them need to be in color in order to completely understand the full meaning the photo.

There is also a cd included which has an additional chapter that the book does not cover. It also has over an hour of video to show you how to perform certain technical functions.

Overall the book is very comprehensive and for those wanting to add to the knowledge they have or possibly use this book for certification exams you have a very good source of information.

I have been a little overwhelmed with the various options, utilities, etc. and Windows XP Pro and was looking for a book that provides a comprehensive overview. I think this book is what I was looking for and am confident that if I have a question about XP Pro, I'll find the answer within its pages. The authors also strike a good balance between focussing on XP Pro out of the box and the various third-party utilities, etc. available to make your life easier.

tmr

The book arrived on time and was in very good condition, the cd included had no scratches. The book is very useful and right on time for for me to get an A!

Beware of buying this book used, without the cd-rom included. You need the cd-rom more than the book itself. Without the cd-rom you will be unable to complete any assignments because the tests and quizzes are in the disc.

I really like this book. It's overview of the PC really helped me, a beginner at computers, understand many terms better. I enjoyed learning with this book and especially the CD. I really liked how the CD actually showed me how to do everything and explained everything so well.

Before the present days of "All-In-One MCSE Exam Cram", there were those computer professionals who knew about the construction of their computer hardware on a micro level and how to write programs that would control that hardware. This book is from those times. Using Basic, C, Pascal, and assembly language the reader is shown how to do such tasks as play a sequence of tones in the foreground, draw individual pixels in various graphics modes, print graphics on a laserjet printer, and intercept keystrokes without displaying them. Granted, there are much easier ways to do the things talked about in this book than assembly language programs, but you get a very good lesson on the inner workings of your computer to boot. Things have not changed so much over the years that basic computer architecture is not the same and therefore some of the information is still useful. The table of contents for the second edition is as follows:

1. Program Organization
2. Equipment Determination - Shows you how to inventory and assess various system resources.
3. Managing Memory - Shows how to inventory conventional and expanded memory. Shows how to manipulate expanded memory.
4. Programming Interrupts - After a brief tutorial on PC interrupts, you are shown how to program an interrupt controller chip, enable and disable particular interrupts, write your own ISR, and finally chain into existing interrupts.
5. Clocks and Timers - Shows how to control time, date, the real-time clock, and control real-time operations.
6. Programming Sound - Takes you from merely beeping the speaker to playing one or more tones to making sound effects.
7. Intercepting keystrokes - After intercepting keystrokes you may want to display them, intercept conditionally, and write a general purpose keyboard input routine.
8. Interpreting Keystrokes - How to look up various codes, use the numeric keypad and cursor keys, and use special purpose keys.
9. Using a Mouse - Setting the characteristics of the mouse, define the mouse's relationship to the screen, and inputting both analog and digital data from a game port.
10. Managing Disk Drives - This is all about how to manipulate and determine disk space and recover from disk errors.
11. Directory Access - How to manipulate directories and files.
12. Reading and Writing Files - The basics of file IO.
13. Controlling Video Hardware - How to control the screen display mode, background, border color, find and manipulate the cursor, and scroll a text screen.
14. Displaying text - How to write individual characters and strings.
15. Displaying Graphics - How to write pixels for the various graphics formats including EGA and VGA and how to find a color at a particular
point on the screen.
16. Controlling a printer - How to control and print on an HP LaserJet.

The examples in this book will tell you how to control most of the basic hardware on your computer at a low level. Controlling the head and motors on the floppy drive, activating and using XMS, and many more are all explained and include a code example in 4 languages. In addition, each section includes tutorial and background information on that area of computer hardware that explains some of the background that might affect results.

This is basically a cookbook for doing all kinds of neat things with your computer. Has code snippets in c, basic, asm, and pascal.

I love this book!

I have used many beginner-to-intermediate books on Java, but this has always been the best one I could find as a reference for GUI-related topics. It has excellent, practical examples on layouts, colors, and constructing basic GUIs. It's been the one book that I end up having on my desktop when I start any new GUI.

This book fills in a niche market between an OOP theory book and an advanced Java reference book. It shows you how to apply OOP and use Java for rapid application development. If you know basic of Java and want to use JBuilder for RAD, this book will help you.

Daniel Liang is one of the most reliable Java authors and this book for advanced programmers, who already know Java, is unique. It allows programmers to progress rapidly and use JBuilder's built in tools for creating state of the art Java programs quickly. Shows how to use Java Beans. It also comes with JBuilder.

Any criticisms you have encountered about this book being biased towards prepress are true. But if you are involved with PDF in prepress, this book is very good.

This book will take you from beginner (but not novice) to advanced intermediate. It won't take you to expert; but then expert comes with experience. Given that each prepress environment has its own peculiarities, you'll have to work within your system to take it to its limits. This book can help some of the way.

My only complaint is related to my personal situation. On occasions, concerning some particularly fine points, the book suggests "ask your prepress partner". I am trying to become that prepress person, so I found this frustrating. Understandable, but frustrating.

I needed something more comprehensive and revealing than the usual offering of beginners texts. Yet, I WAS a beginner.

This book not only covers the general abilities of Acrobat, it discuses little known intricacies and technical issues that will make you a power user in record time.

Remarkably, the information is explained in simple, ordinary language.

I started working for a medium sized ad agency 2 years ago. Every document we produce has to be made in to PDF format for review by our clients. I could make a PDF, but really had no true understanding of the settings and what I was really doing. This book is truly excellent at giving a novice a complete understanding of the PDF format. For someone already knowlegeable about the PDF format it is also a very valuable reference. This is one of the most useful computer books I have bought in years and I buy alot of them. When our tech-guy has problems with Acrobat he comes to me and borrows this book.

The best thing about the book is that it breaks down PDF creation by program. For example, if you use Quark Xpress there is a chapter dedicated on how to use Acrobat with Quark. If you use Microsoft Word there is another chapter on using Acrobat with it. These chapters present you with real world scenarios and how to deal with them.

This is not some kind of quick start guide. It does get in to some detail and that helped me a great deal. It doesn't just gloss-over a subject or give you bare-bones steps on how to do something.

This is an easy to understand book that will help out anbody at any level with using Acrobat. I can't say enough good things about it. This is the first book I have purchased in the "Real World" series of books... it won't be my last!