|
looking
for help
Two
books offer wealth of advice
|
By
Jennifer Hill
Cox News Service
At times,
making sense of computers and the Internet feels like trying
to break into an impenetrable fortress. I felt this way a
couple of weeks ago after spending almost 90 minutes on the
phone with an incredibly patient tech assistant, and still
failed to get a new connection to my Internet service provider
to work.
Despite the tech assistant's cheery willingness to start again
from the top, I couldn't face it. At that point, I'd have
preferred being locked in a room to count floor-to-ceiling
ballots with dimpled chads (just kidding).
l know I'm not alone because I get quite a bit of e-mail from
people with questions about their computers and the Internet
and making them get along. Lots of books address both topics.
I know, because many of them come in the mail to the newspaper.
Two useful and easy-to-understand books recently arrived:
"The Rough Guide to the Internet," 2001 edition for PCs and
Macs, by Angus J. Kennedy, and "The Geek Squad Guide to Solving
Any Computer Glitch," by Robert Stephens with Dale Burg.
Had I owned "The Rough Guide to the Internet," I could have
saved the my patient techie friend and myself much time and
aggravation. I would have missed our chats, but I probably
would have ended up on the Net, as I originally intended.
The first half the book is called "Basics." It contains detailed
Internet information on everything from basic terms and definitions
(what's a portal?) to the ins and outs of e-mail to setting
up your own Web page.
In chapter three, "Connection Software," Kennedy walks you
through setting up the proper configurations for Internet
access. As patient as my friend in Phoenix was, he often lost
me when he let loose a string of computer terms.
I wanted to understand him; I just couldn't keep all the terms
in my head. In the book, all the terms in their acronym-onius
glory, plus a picture of how they appear on computer screen,
are laid out for me to read aloud using my finger to follow
the words until they start to make sense (a little).
The second half is a Web guide that the author readily admits
is just the "tip of the iceberg." But it's a quite useful
tip, well worth $9.95.
Of course, you can't have access to the Internet without a
properly working computer. In "The Geek Squad Guide, " I found
a proper companion to the no-frills style of "The Rough Guide
to the Internet." The tongue-in-cheek approach set up by its
comic book-style cover is continued throughout the book. Stephens
sets forth trade secrets developed by his computer support
business of the same name, in easy-to-understand language.
Liberally sprinkled with black-and-white line drawings, the
book tackles common computer problems for both Mac and PC
users. Very basic advice, such as options for keyboard spills
and data recovery, is peppered with quirky humor (corrupted
fonts are the result of allowing Dingbats to hang around with
Palantinos unsupervised) that makes you smile through your
technical pain. |
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