Sebastopol, CA--A personal computer is the center of a surprisingly complex cluster of hardware. In addition to the basic box, PC users depend on peripherals such as disk drives, printers, monitors, sound cards, and each is fraught with its own set of bugs and snares. You'll encounter no shortage of annoyances as you try to get all this hardware to play nicely together. You can curse, you can plead, and you can pray to the PC gods, but when you reach the point where you're ready to toss your hard drive out on the street, it's time for real help.
Enter PC Hardware Annoyances (O'Reilly, US $24.95) by Stephen J. Bigelow--your key to making peace with your computer and peripherals. This latest release in O'Reilly's successful Annoyances series identifies the maddening glitches, perplexing interdependencies, and obnoxious malfunctions that leave you cringing in frustration. Then, through the use of ingenious, entertaining, and practical solutions, PC repair guru Bigelow shows you how to clear each obstacle, one step at a time.
"Users feel that the PC is a magical black box that operates in some mysterious way. That's just not true," says Bigelow. "A PC is nothing more than a machine, and with some basic instruction, any PC user can take control and resolve a surprising range of issues."
Designed for PC users of all levels, PC Hardware Annoyances presents straightforward, easy-to-understand troubleshooting solutions. For ultimate ease of use, the book is broken up into several broad hardware categories that include desktops, laptops and PDAs, graphics, sound, hard drives, CD/DVD drives, network, printers, and scanners. "I've focused on the issues that arise in everyday PC use," notes Bigelow. "So there should be something timely for everyone."
PC Hardware Annoyances will help readers tackle the following persistently irritating areas:
PC Hardware Annoyances is especially timely as more computer owners simply upgrade their PCs as they age, rather than replacing them altogether. But as with any do-it-yourself project, trouble lurks around the corner if you don't have the right guide. Whether you want to set up your color inkjet printer, burn a music CD, or fix a misbehaving modem, PC Hardware Annoyances is the book you'll need.
Additional Resources:
- A sample excerpt, "Desktop Annoyances"
- More information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bio, and samples
- A cover graphic in JPEG format
PC Hardware Annoyances
Stephen J. Bigelow
ISBN: 0-596-00715-9, 246 pages, $24.95 US, $36.95 CA
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