Description:
"Tips, insights, and a good orientation for beginners--but too general to be really useful." I was surprised to find this book available. There seem to be so few laptop books out there. I have theory about that: Laptop users already have desktop computers, so they generally know what's going on. Or, people are given the laptop for a specific task and they don't need or want a book to help them. Those are my theories, mostly because I wrote a laptop book many years ago and it never really sold squat. Sams Teach Yourself Notebook Basics in 10 Minutes is one of those amazing "timed" books--you know, like Flatten Your Abs in 8 Minutes a Day. It makes your task sound easy, and in the case of this book, I found nothing in particular that led me to stop reading after 10 minutes. Then again, there wasn't anything that compelled me to keep reading when I grew weary after, say, four minutes. So, the "10 minute" thing eludes me. On the other hand, this isn't a bad book. It's dry. The organization is weak. But it contains many interesting and useful tips, quite a few of which I didn't know about, such as travel tips and the antitheft guide. I suppose that if you were interested in spending serious money for a laptop and needed a good orientation, this book would more than fit the bill. But it's not packaged that way. The biggest problem is that all notebook computers are different. The manufacturers seem to do a fair job of notebook orientation in manuals, so there needs to be something worthy about a book like this to make you pick it up (or, well, "click" it up) and buy it. And that something is...well, not in this edition. Granted, there are lots of useful tips. But is this the book you want to rubber-band to your notebook? No. --Dan Gookin
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