Computers - All You Need to Know (The PC Support Handbook - David Dick)

Member Name: auldmac

Product:	The PC Support Handbook - David Dick
Date:	15/06/01 (258 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very comprehensive and well informed content

Disadvantages: Very 'heavy'

There are many many good books in circulation which deal with computers and computing, but the main reason that I have chosen to write about this one ( The PC Support Handbook ) is because I have been carrying it around with me and referring to it for nearly 2 years now, while I completed and achieved my Assessors /Internal Verifiers award in Information and Computing Technology.

If you are intending to become a student of computing at any level, then I thoroughly recommend this excellent book.

It’s not exactly ‘cheap’ - usually priced around £25, but if you are going to use it over a period of years then it’s definitely a good investment.

It would take a very long and involved opinion to attempt to describe all of the contents of this fine work, but I will endeavour to highlight the salient points which would be of most use to a computer student or computer builder or engineer.

Chapter one covers computer hardware basics, including, PC components assembling a computer system, how to get it all up and running, and basically all you need to know system parts including hard and floppy drives, CD Rom’s, Printers and in fact all of the hardware which goes to making up a computer system.

( If you can drop it on your foot, then it’s probably Hardware, if you can't, then it’s probably software :-)

Chapters two and three deal with software, including application software and operating systems, including the dreaded dos, windows and also highlights such items as the windows explorer and other salient parts of the windows system.

There is a very detailed section on computer architecture, i.e. binary and hexadecimal numbers and how the computer actually works - How all the data is processed by the Central processing Unit etc. and also covers assembly language and PC bus architectures, all heavy duty stuff, I assure you.

The following chapters deal with vide
o, i.e. monitors, video graphics cards and health and safety, all of which are necessary to gain even the beginnings of an HNC or HND in computing and there are comprehensive articles on how to write batch files and understand how computer memory operates.

Ever wondered how viruses work, and how they can destroy files ? Well there’s also a very detailed section on the subject of the dreaded viruses and also a complete chapter on PC Support which gives much good advice on system maintenance, problem diagnosis, system diagnostics and fault finding.

The final chapters cover data communications, how modems work, PC to PC data transfers, browsers, multimedia ,ISDN and Computer Networks. In fact just about anything you need to know about computers can be found in this one book.

The bad news is that it is quite a large, heavy book to carry around, but the good news is that for a £5 fee, you can send away for the CD Rom which is an accompaniment to the book and is considerably lighter, especially if you might be doing as I did, lugging it about for a very long time.

The PC Support Handbook.
Author - David Dick
ISBN 09521484-4-7
Dumbreck Publishing

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