Rating: 
Summary: This book woos, wows, educates, amazes and entertains!
Review: Around the year 300 BCE a significant book appeared. It was titled Elements, and it contained everything the Greeks believed about geometry and mathematics. Euclid, the far-seeing author, could hardly have imagined that it would become the standard text in the field for the next two thousand years. In our time, information and technological advances move a little faster. Regretfully we acknowledge that the blazing fast desktop computer we buy at Christmas will be a tortoise by summertime, and ready for the scrapheap in two short years. To paraphrase Sam Goldwyn: Today's state-of-the-art knowledge is tomorrow's yesterday's news. That's why, every year, I treat myself to a new edition of How Computers Work. This beautiful-looking guide is one of the most compelling and information-packed computer books in print. The large and colorful illustrations (by Timothy Edward Downs and Stephen Adams) make the book a pure delight to study. Ron White's explanations, simple and direct, rise to the challenge of matching pithy words with the best in illustrative art. In 45 chapters, each one taking on a specific system of the computer, we learn the inner workings of CPUs, storage, multimedia, modems, printers, and all the other important gizmos inside and connected to, what my mother calls, "that little box that hums." Sorry, Mac users: this book is about what's known as "Wintel" computers: PCs that run Microsoft Windows and use Intel-compatible processors. Written for beginners and intermediate level users, this Millennium edition is almost one hundred pages larger than its predecessor. And it's been updated to include new technologies such as fingerprint and voice recognition, Pentium III and MMX processors, MP3 music and digital audio. Looking ahead, the book ventures to predict how the main computer components -- software, multimedia, storage, microchips, printers -- will work in the future near. If your PC has the minimum required 24 Mb RAM to run the accompanying CD-ROM, then you'll be treated to a voice-and-picture interactive tour of the PC. Watching the CD and reading the paperback, it's difficult to imagine anyone who wouldn't be wooed, wowed, educated, amazed and entertained by this exciting book. Michael Pastore, Reviewer
Rating: 
Summary: Very Good, Great introduction to the subject.
Review: A very good book, breaking down the concepts behind that hunk of silicon sitting on your desktop. While I'm sure there are books that go into more technical detail, this is a great intorduction to the topic.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I was expecting another great book in this great series. This one needs an editor and proofreader. Great content, but riddled with errors (typos?) that change the meaning. Some ridiculous errors of fact too (5 1/4 floppies held 100 MB? )
Rating:
Summary: Great Book for people like me who know how but not why.
Review: I really enjoyed this book and it has been a great help to me in my work and the general use of computers. I have known how to use the computer as a tool to help me in my work, but now my work is becomming computers due to evolving system technology. I had to have a good place to start to learn just what this book offers. It is explaned very simply and easy to understand. It's a great jumping off point to get a person ready for the next step. I plan to recommend it to my co-workers since most all of us are in the same boat.
Rating:
Summary: should assist reader to find more detailed information
Review: First of all please spell millennium correctly in the headings listing the book . It is a good broad brush introduction to the topic, how does one delve deeper?
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to my expectations
Review: Five stars for color. Two stars for content. Overall one star because of how disappointed I was. Have you ever watched a high tech movie where all the emphasis is placed on the special effects and none on the story line, the actual content? like Star Wars' latest or The Mummy. That's what this book is like. I couldn't get into it. I thought the book was useless, hence the one star. I don't recommend it. I did like the cd-rom though.
Rating:
Summary: Great book i agree- especially for A+ core printer section
Review: Great book i recommend this to anybody novice or pr
Rating:
Summary: Best I have every read, for beginners to advance users
Review: I work in a training command (Military), when I showed this book to our Computer Maintenance Training Section, they loved it. They are plan to purchase it as a training manual.
Rating:
Summary: Must agree with everyone else, except...
Review: I have to agree with the numerous individuals who bothered to write a review. The material is presented in an excellent manner. I feel the "picture-book" appearance, as a Huntsville reviewer writes, IS appropriate for the whole mission of the book: to simplify and clarify the inner workings of what may seem scarily complex to a lot of people. Computer technology is too vast for even the experts to know everything about it. Contradictory to what "Very Disappointed" from Irvine, CA has to say (expl-A-nations), this is a must for anyone who uses a computer.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for both advanced and beginner users
Review: How Computers Work is a very informative book that it is put out so you can understand it. Some of the things that this book covers are very advanced that I wasn't too sure about. However, I think that this book is not just for beginners, it covers very complex information for people who are very computer literate, yet, even that is very easy to understand. I would recommend it to everyone who uses a computer.
|
