Peter Norton's New Inside the PC

Book Description

No competing book provides a more in-depth understanding of the working principles and operations of the computer to a general audience. Ensures maximum productivity by providing an intimate working knowledge of the personal computer at all levels. Uses the unique "Peter Norton" approach: expert advice in a user-friendly, hands-on exploratory mode. Topics covered: Inside IBM-standard PCs, processors, disks, memory, peripherals, networking (including the Internet), and the newest developments in 3-D audio and video.

Download Description

The book will introduce and discuss all of the new XP features in a style that is both conceptual and informative. It covers why and when to upgrade to XP and if so, how to do it; understanding services and their configurations; explanation of the new Internet options, such as third party cookie alert, firewalls, and Web publishing wizard; Registry configurations and why the configurations work as they do; networking topics and integration ideas for home networks, as well as explanations about using the networking wizards., and understanding how XP works with software and hardware.

Customer Reviews:

Fabulous. Belongs on every computer user's bookshelf.......2004-04-12

My comments are based on the 1999 Eighth edition. This 2002 edition is similar.
This book is fabulous. No argument possible, it's a great book. It may be better suited to some experience/interest levels than others, but by any standard it's an excellent book.

It's like an "Encyclopedia of the IBM-PC," but with in depth treatment of the topics. If you've ever wondered what any acronym (PCMCIA, e.g.) means, you will find it in this book. The difference is that whereas another book may explain that acronym with only a sentence or a paragraph, Norton gives you seven pages on that and related technologies including: ATA protocol, CardBus, Card Services, CIS, flash, Media storage format, Socket Services.... Multiply that level of detail times every computer acronym you've ever wondered about and you have a valuable resource.

The book is an in-depth overview to the PC. You get deeper coverage of each topic then you would normally get in a book of this type, and therein lies the main value. Still, since it's an overview, if you want to dig into a topic you are given excellent references to external sources.

As expected, given Norton's roots in the disk utilities area, great depth is given to the subject of hard and floppy disks and their structure and organization. You won't find a better or deeper treatment of this material anywhere other than Norton's materials. If you want to understand the FAT, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, master boot block, master boot record, partition table, etc., this is the place.

The book targets beginners to experts, and I think that's a strength. Beginners get introductory material (like what is a byte or a serial cable) explained, while experts get deep treatment (like why a 16550A UART is better than a 16550 p429). That makes this single book a great reference for anyone, especially a newbie. You may have to study some pages carefully or even look up external resources, but isn't that unavoidable?

Sadly, tragically, this book is left over from an earlier, better, time of computing. The first edition of this book is from a day when you owned your own computer, not Microsoft. In that day, fun, excitement, experimentation, discovery, fascination, and programming the hardware yourself were still part of the equation. In that day it was popular to use a tool like DEBUG and poke around in the portions of memory managed by the operating system and really understand what was going on. Now, Windows is so complex and sophisticated that poking around like that is of limited usefulness. Still, tell me where are you going to get anyone to tell you about DEBUG or using I/O ports to talk to the CMOS or real-time clock these days?

Also the info on understanding the hard and floppy disks, while fascinating, is of limited use in modern times. Back in the day when a 10MB hard disk cost you $1000, yes, you might take the time to use DEBUG to poke around the sectors and repair the partition table. In modern times I would not do that. I would just go to "Best Buy" and buy a new one for $50 and use the other 2 days of my weekend for reading this excellent book.

Very informative.......2002-08-17

PC and associated technologies change very rapidly. I am a software engineer and not very hardware savvy, and when I go to Fry's shopping for a PC, I am at a total loss - how much Video memory is adequate, what is a PCMCIA slot that laptops tout, what is SDRAM - what are my alternates, should I get an AMD Athelon or a Pentium Pro, whats USB 2, what are the differences between a TFT LCD and a regular CRT and whats this new Firewire I see advertised these days. This book covers all these and more for the layman. And they are covered well.
You will find this book very useful if you are not very hardware savvy like me. This book is not cheesy - it doesn't cover a lot of topics just to sell. The topics are covered just enough to give you an idea that there is such a thing out there, and if you really want to do a PhD about it, there are detailed books out there.

The language is informal. Its good in a way and bad. Sometimes some statements are not very clear. I also found a good number of typos (I don't know if was the Edition I bought).

But otherwise a good book.

Book Description

How do you value e-business?
Since IT now consumes over half of new capital investment in US firms, the central question facing senior management investing in knowledge intensive businesses is, "how do you value e-business?" This book takes a financial perspective on the new economy and addresses many of the problems that are a part of the financial structure of the new economy. Valuing Technology offers methods for determining the financial valuation of investments made in technology in New Economy businesses. Companies in genomics, proteomics, nanotechnology, robotics, and other highly technical fields require huge up-front costs and often experience other idiosyncrasies of high-tech business. This book covers those angles and more, helping readers accurately valuate modern e-businesses. It provides comprehensive analysis of emerging valuation techniques for New Economy companies and it clearly explains how financial assessment techniques are adapting to high-tech companies.

Customer Reviews:

Well argued prerequisite for Financial Dynamics.......2003-12-13

Dr. Westland's book Valuing Technology provides unique explanations for the dot-com bubble, and for the chaos in tech markets. Both this and his sequel, Financial Dynamics offer important contributions to the study of investment valuation

Interesting and unique.......2002-07-24

This is an interesting book that helped me to understand why accounting and Wall Street have grown corrupt. Along with caveats, the author describes changes in accounting and finance that would help to improve the performance of the finance community in meeting investor's needs.

Innovative survey of finance in the information age.......2002-04-07

The book is written in an engaging style, and surveys current strengths and shortcomings in the tools of financial analysis when applied to technology stocks. At points, the mathematics are complex, but only as much as he needs to state his case. I think Westland's explanations of the way technology companies are different than industrial firms are accurate. They provided me with insights that I have not seen anywhere else. The book falls short in describing how to value technology stocks, which is a weakness. On the other hand, there is enough new material in the book to make it worth its price

Andersen partners -- must read!.......2002-03-19

This is a courageous and insightful book which should be required reading for all Big-5 accountants. Westland shows how the breakdown in accounting's ability to deal with the new economy undermines investment decisions, and fosters an environment of skepticism and deceipt.

Andersen partners -- must read!.......2002-03-19

Book Description

Within the joint German-Russian research project "Siberian River Run-off (SIRRO)" multidisciplinary studies were carried out in the Ob and Yenisei estuaries and adjacent southern Kara Sea (Arctic Ocean). The overall goal of the project was to extend knowledge on understanding the freshwater and sediment input by the major Siberian rivers and its impact on the environments of the inner Kara Sea. The main results of oceanographical, biological, geochemical, geological and modelling studies are presented in four main chapters:
(A) Modern Discharge: Data and modelling; (B) Discharge and biological processes, (C) Discharge and organic carbon cycle, and (D) Discharge and sediment records.

Average customer rating:

Bleeding from the boots

Better Than 5 Stars !

A Thoroughly Pleasant Hell

Bay Area Nerds Local 9415

Good And Bad In Equal Measures Because It's True

Pleasant Hell
John Dolan
Manufacturer: Capricorn Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0975397044

Customer Reviews:

Bleeding from the boots.......2007-10-03

It took me a while to come around. During my first reading, I was desperately looking for flaws. Reasons to throw the book away. I criticized the grammar. The jacket says, "language as precise as Nabokov's"-so I looked for sentences that weren't precise enough. I skipped chapters. I should have been given a pair of those Clockwork
Orange-style eyeball clamps. I should have been tied to a light-rig like Canny Scot, with the book held up against my nose. Like it says on page 52: "What nerds want above all is to get the hell away from anybody who reminds them of themselves."

During my second reading, it hit me: This man is trying to give you the truth, you wretched little ingrate. You really don't understand what's going on here? No glimmers of recognition in this story about a fat, obtuse, unwashed young man? And why aren't you laughing harder?

Right now (this is the absolute, Dolan-caliber truth) I'm hiding in my apartment because a young Japanese woman thought she saw me taking pictures of her from my bedroom window. I was actually taking pictures of nothing, of the bland cityscape outside, but she happened to look up and see a lumpy, pale, unshaven man pointing a camera directly at her. The building manager was called, and I cowered in my stinking, airless bedroom while he interrogated my roommate. Now I'm afraid to go out, and all I have for company is Pleasant Hell. Chapter 21 is especially
resonant.

Better Than 5 Stars ! .......2007-05-31

John Dolan is as fine an author as anyone writing today. In fact, he should be named "Writer Laureate" for life, or until he names someone as his successor. This gem of a book is a "coming of age" novel by someone who has long since come of age and who can direct his laser-accurate consciousness onto the page for the benefit of us lucky readers. How much is autobiographical and how much isn't is not the point. Dolan's protagonist is so accurately created you will want to read more of his work. Dolan's got a raft of columns in the eXile, a Moscow-based alternative newspaper. Most readers are also positive that he's "The War Nerd," another "columnist" in the eXile. Dolan has a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley; has won poetry prizes; and is currently guest lecturing at a university in Canada. Check him out - he's a true talent.

A Thoroughly Pleasant Hell.......2007-04-29

Having grown up forty miles southwest of Pleasant Hell, and six years later than Dr. Dolan, I approached this work somewhat personally & was well rewarded. This book exquisitely captures life in the vast white suburbs in the last third of the previous century. Dolan, in his descriptive passages, brings to life time & place. For example, the description of the old alligator pit at the Steinhart Aquarium stunned me.

Reading the previous reviews, I would say they're all true, both the positive and the negative. Ask any psychotherapist: the key to happiness lies in ignoring a good amount of the truth about this world. The possible character flaw this book may be self-pity, but it's a flaw it shares with the work of Dolan's great master, Dr. Destouches (Louis-Ferdinande Céline). Of this sin, who among us is innocent? If we don't feel sorry for ourselves, who will?

Bay Area Nerds Local 9415.......2007-03-29

John Dolan is easily the best writer the 21st century has yet produced.
I don't give this praise lightly - or in ignorance. As a lifelong book-nerd I, like Dr. Dolan, have been brutalized into EXTREME cynicism and find it difficult to praise anything. I've also squandered much of a misspent youth scratching my head over "immortal classics" like . . . The Brothers Karamazov, and blaming myself for not enjoying the dusty bones of such vividly fake literati as Joyce and Hemmingway.
Thank God for Dr. Dolan!
In a ruthlessly clear voice, he has worked a miracle. To write a self-pitying memoir about a largely uneventful life in the (I know) horrible flatness of Pleasant Hill WITHOUT descending into sniveling or dishonesty.
No happy endings, folks. No fun. No catharsis or deep transformations.
This is the genius of Dolan's writing; to reflect life back at you with so little distortion that the shock of recognition - of hearing your own inner accuser amplified and sent back at you - paralizes the will to go on.
Have you ever had a crush on a girl? Did she like you back? Overwhelmingly, the honest answer is "no."
On T.V., in most books, in the lies we tell about ourselves, the truth gets a facelift. We remember ourselves being smarter and better-liked than we were.
Dolan has none of that. Every vignette in this book is horrible. The lesbians who keep him as a pet, the way he gets decked out in his Punk Uniform and drives through downtown Oakland with an attack dog in his car - and the only thing on the radio is Elton John, and the ceaseless self-blame for not being out having a Good Time like the papers tell you to.
God save John Dolan . . . if only because Oprah's fans will kill him someday.

Good And Bad In Equal Measures Because It's True.......2006-12-25

I started reading John Dolan after I moved to Moscow, Russia more than two years ago. I really admire his prose style and insightful writing in book reviews and feature articles. However, his fatal flaw is that he is still an angry young man of the kind that most people outgrow in their 20s. Much of the cruelty and perceived wrongs he write about in "Pleasant Hell" were experienced by most people since almost everyone is outside the exclusive group Dolan alternately hates and admires. Most people would grow out of this phase and anyone as educated and intelligent as Doaln should realize that most of the people he vents his spite on don't have his education and accomplishments to look back on a little bit later in life.

On the other hand, his decriptions of the everyday life of a loser is dead on. It's a disturbing book, but one that people should read.

Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia (Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting)

Average customer rating:

Self Serving Rubbish
Revisionist Review
Pathetic, sad story of a self-centred traitor

Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia (Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting)
Eric Pleasants
Manufacturer: Mainstream Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Irish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Political Parties | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1840187433
Release Date: 2005-08-16

Book Description

Of all the extraordinary individual accounts that have come out of World War II and its aftermath, few can compare with that of Eric Pleasants, a member of the "bastard" British wing of Hitler's SS. In this book, Pleasants writes of the bizarre and traumatic years he spent as a prisoner of the 20th century's most notorious dictators. From a vagabond life, Pleasants was taken by the Nazis to a series of prison camps in France. The years that followed held a whirlwind of unexpected turns—he lived a life on the run in occupied Paris, was captured and recruited into the British Free Corps of the Waffen-SS, found love with a young German woman, witnessed the bombing of Dresden, and attempted to hide from Soviet troops along the sewers of Berlin. When the war ended, Pleasants found himself on the Communist side of the Iron Curtain. He was arrested by the KGB on charges of espionage and sentenced to 25 years' slave labor in the notorious camps of Arctic Russia. Only with Stalin's death in 1953 was Pleasants finally released from his unique kind of purgatory, after nearly half a lifetime of peripatetic nightmare. Hitler's Bastard is a remarkable monument to his imperishable will to survive.

Customer Reviews:

Self Serving Rubbish.......2006-05-10

Cowardice or courage to stand up for beliefs aside, this is unmitigated rubbish. A puny attempt to re-write negative press against him, it is written is such pathetic self promotion, as to be painful.

His references to him being a "Muscular Englishman" all of 5'3", who seems to have led a life of petty crime across europe. He is obvioulsy trying to write a pornograpic distraction to his utter contempt for his nationality and those who fought nobly on any side.

A pacifist who joined the SS does not make sense. It is infuriating reading, and the preface to works such as the Gulag Archipelago might distract you from reading that worthy tome.

Don't buy this rubbish, don't even bother getting it from the library, it is purile.

Revisionist Review.......2005-11-20

Based on the 1 star rating from a biased reviewer, I ordered, cancelled and reordered Hitler's Bastard. I read the whole book in one setting. It was one of the better books I have read on European WWII in the last 4 decades. Mr. Pleasants was one of those characters in life who was blessed with a guardian angel whether they wanted one or not. He truly had nine lives as the old saying goes. I found his escapades absolutely fascinating. Its true that he was not one to put a lot of effort in morality, in any religious belief or political stance, but Eric Pleasants was above all else, a survivor and always at the expense of someone else. He was full of contrasts; an anti-war pacifist but a Waffen SS member of the British Free Corps,a one time bodyguard to British Royalty and a circus strong man. He was also a thief, a liar and a slave laborer in the Soviet Gulags. He survived it all to live to the ripe old age of 87. This is the first book that I have found that hads given a good description of the Waffen SS unit, British Free Corps and it reveals the shameful collaboration of the British people on Jersy with the occupying Germans, a fact that I am sure many wanted to remain hidden. I do highly recommend this book for its historical imput about some rarely discussed subjects of WWII. It is well written, has a sense of humor and above all smacks of honesty in telling it like it was. Eric Pleasants was a scoundral but one of those rare individuals who manage to make it through the worst of life by wit and force when many others would have long since given up. Read Hitler's Bastard with an open mind. It is a gold mine of information.

Pathetic, sad story of a self-centred traitor.......2004-02-18

This is a book about one mans attempts to sanitize his shady past during World War II. Mr. Pleasants attempts to convince the reader that trying to dodge doing your duty to your nation was a reasonable thing to do. He tries to convince the reader that theft of desperately needed food provisions from other hungry islanders in Nazi-occupied Jersey was the right thing to do. He tries to convince us that fist fights are a reasonable way to gain respect and time in prison was somehow not "fair" for him to have to endure.

The hardest things to swallow are the reasons why he decides to join the British Free Corps of the German SS. There are numerous reasons given as to why he choose to do such a thing, and overall this leaves little doubt about the mans character.

He hides his reasons for theft behind the oft-trotted out excuse that thieves give, which is they "only stole from the rich". Somehow that is supposed to make theft ok. He gives no reasons apart from being self-centered as to why he felt he deserved to eat more than other islanders by stealing from them.

There are limited plus sides to this book. The writing style is fluid and readable, and occasionally the writer actually manages to paint a reasonable picture of an event in ones mind. But that's about it.

Where the book is badly let down is that the writer has made little or no effort to research any of the events with any degree of historic discipline. He appears to have merely reprinted Mr. Pleasants words, thoughts and self-centered opinions verbatim without any attempt to balance the view of Mr. Pleasants or research the events described by him.

The book is entirely one-sided and could do with some substantial revision once research into events has uncovered, clarified, substantiated, or repudiated some of the claims made by Mr. Pleasants. It would appear to be not too much trouble to research the court records of Jersey (for example) as one outside source of (hopefully) unbiased information on his life.

I personally found Mr. Pleasants views on life pathetic and repugnant. Whilst in Jersey he roundly cursed those Islanders who collaborated with the Germans for the benefits that such collaboration bought, yet he utterly fails to realize that by volunteering for the SS he was guilty of exactly the same thing.

Seven years of forced labor in a Russian coal mine was simply not enough.

Book Description

Parker Preston is serving his first tour of duty in the Persian desert. He's disillusioned in his career choice and desperate for a little fun. Unfortunately, the fun that finds him and his comrades will destroy some of them and leave Parker on the brink of a horror too great to face alone.

For centuries, the Catholic Church has carried on a clandestine vendetta against the oldest and most feared source of malevolence in the world, vampyres. A courageous priest and the journals that he's kept concealed may be the deliverance that Parker needs to fight his infliction.

Last month Ahkaf was an ordinary young man. He's traveled across the world hunting the evil creatures that tortured and murdered his entire family.

Aramakhan believes his strength and power are infallible. He's as old as time, more evil than your worst nightmare. But, how will he react when he finds that his spawn intends on taking over the world? And, she's planning to use his immortality and invincibility to do it.

Kaleb Kempe has been with the Sheriff's Department for ten years. Never has he come across such a cold-blooded killer. The trail of bodies leads him into a world he wished did not exist. But, when all hell breaks loose in Pleasant Valley, will he believe his own eyes?

When average citizens are forced together by circumstances beyond their control and are forced to rid the world of Revera and her band of blood-sucking divas, or perish, they must search within themselves to find the strength, compassion and faith necessary to destroy their worst nightmare. After all, there's no such thing as vampires! Or is there?

Customer Reviews:

VAMPED!.......2004-01-23

The human capacity for evil transcends the realms of reality in this book. The characters come to life as they battle the most seductive form of pure evil and strive to maintain their faith and family values. When's the sequal coming out? This would make a great movie!

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