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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week –
9/21/2005 |
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Book
Review – Using Windows XP Home 3rd
edition – Que Books When you
buy a new computer with windows xp home or professional edition on it,
you’ll find some pretty good tutorials on learning about the operating
system by clicking on the start menu and then clicking on Help and Support.
Here you’ll find some pretty good Microsoft tutorials and animations on
various aspects of things to learn about windows xp. But to
really learn about it, you have to go under the hood, and to do this
you’ll need a really good book on the subject. Using Windows XP Home 3rd
edition – Que Books – authors Robert Cowart and Brian Knittel - is a great book that goes
in-depth into all aspects of windows xp, and you can learn everything you
wanted to know about everything built into xp, along with some interesting
trivia and tricks. For
example, Windows 98 had 13 million lines of programming code, but Windows XP
has 60 million lines. Both versions of windows xp offer many new features and
improvements over earlier windows versions, particularly in the areas of
networking, graphics and music, and internet related operations. Most
people know how to change the background on the desktop, by right clicking on
a blank spot and selecting properties – desktop – and then
selecting one of the Microsoft supplied graphics for your desktop background.
Power users know that you’re not just limited to these graphics –
you can pick any graphic that you have stored on your computer to use as a
background – pictures of your spouse, or kids, or cars, of just
anything you want. But when
you click on the start button, and the start menu pops up, and at the top of
that is a picture of chess pieces – not many people know that you
can change that picture too– simply by left clicking on it, and again a
menu pops up that lets you choose either Microsoft graphics, or you can
choose your own. This is a small item, but it lets you know how customizable
the windows xp operation user interface is and this book is filled with these
tidbits. Topics in
this book go on forever, Using and customizing the XP interface, using the
supplied applications like word pad, pad, calculator, printing and faxing,
multimedia and imaging, the internet, sending emails with outlook express,
trouble shooting internet problems, customizing the interface and optimizing
system performance, and then a large section of the book focuses on
networking interoffice and to the internet. Here is
where this book really shines, in that it comes with a cd that has 40 minutes
of networking setup training and a tutorial on how to do dozens of other
tasks. They say
a picture is worth a thousand words, so what’s a movie worth of trained
professionals telling and showing you exactly how to set up a windows
network, and what problems you might run into. This starts at the hardware
level, going over the network cards and cables and hubs you’re going to
need; covers this topic quite thoroughly, and then shows how to software
configure your windows network setup, using the network wizard or doing it
from scratch, and it even gets into explaining why the Microsoft setup
screens use some terms that make no sense. This is
truly a book done by authors who know what they’re talking about, and
it’s a pleasure to read and watch the cd movies. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2005 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html (509)624-7230 |
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