Customer Reviews

A+ Guide to Hardware: Managing, Maintaining and Troubleshooting, Third Edition, Enhanced

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is probably best for those with very little technical background, as it tends to read like a rather introductory-level text at times. However, it does, for the most part, explain higher-level things that you WOULD need to know in order to become A+ certified, and doesn't do an incredibly poor job of it.

Unfortunately, this book has problems. I have some background knowledge of digital audio, and I noticed that whenever the book mentions this topic, it has information that is horribly oversimplified, misinformed, or just plain wrong, as if the author didn't even bother to check her facts. This makes me wonder what other subjects in the book are handled carelessly. Also, some things in the book seem to be updated a bit less than they should - it suffers from a probably-common problem of acting as if the most popular technology is still what it was four years ago (for instance, at one point it states that Windows 98 is still the most popular OS, which even contradicts another part of the book which claims it to be Windows 2000).

Aside from this, and some general misinformation contained within the book, it's also written somewhat unprofessionally at times - I'm sorry, but a section on DVD encoding ending with the sentence "The sound effects can be awesome!" insults my intelligence a slight bit, as this is supposed to be a book on how to become a technical professional, not how to sell the things to some computer-illiterate customer at Best Buy who wouldn't understand the technical details. She seems to prefer using very simple analogies and terribly silly diagrams in order to explain ones, which can be frustrating if you're a technically-minded person (which you probably are if you're trying to pass the A+ exam).

The CDs that come with the book don't really seem to work very well: With Quicktime 7 the program simply crashed when run, so I had to downgrade to Quicktime 6, and I can't seem to find any of the quizzes or other things that it advertizes - and it doesn't have any documentation, so you're out of luck there (the program's "Help" button leads you to a credits page).

One important thing to note is that the A+ certification exams are getting a major overhaul as of late this year (2006), meaning that a lot of the information in this book is going to simply be obsolete very soon, such as most anything involving DOS or Windows 9x/Me, so I would personally suggest looking elsewhere, although this is hardly the book's fault.

All in all, the book would be pretty good if it weren't for some incorrect information (especially concerning audio), lack of hard technical details in some parts, and some other problems. I'd like to be able to recommend this book, but I'd suggest looking elsewhere, and not trusting what you read in this one without supplemental research, as I've seen too many things in it that even I've been able to point out as being incorrect.

I purchased this book for a class on PC Maintenance. It is a well written, articlulate book and assumes NO prior knowledge on the part of the reader regarding PC hardware. It covers both the older and newer (ex SATA) technologies. The CD's are OK, but they are encoded in Quick Time format as opposed to DVD.

This textbook was required for my coursework at a local college. I'm sorry to say although very well done in some respects, it is marred by many careless errors.

These include: several screenshot pictures with extra characters between each word, areas where the text was not proof-read and is misplaced or otherwise not intelligable, some outright errors such as on page 245 where she misidentifies when a certain type of cable was launched (a test question), book quizzes without any answers provided let alone reasons for the answer, and class tests from the author with several mistakes and no explanations for any of the questions. A book CD that does not contain nearly what it's said to contain.

The book does have many good points. The illustrations are often very good. Some of the analogies and explanations are very clear. It covers a lot of ground. There are many good helpful exercises at chapter end and some very good appendicies at the end of the book. The book is strong on giving you a systematic approach to fixing a computer.

I'm disappointed that this could have been at least a four star and
maybe even five star book but for the careless errors and deficiencies I've mentioned above. If I was grading it a "C" would be the best I could
do.

Howard Perer

I used this book years ago to study for my A+ and loved it. Today I am teaching A+ and Networking classes in college. This book has no equal. I have tried some of the others. Take the Myers A+ guide that some like. Here he writes a book about computers yet there is no real discussion on how a computer works?????? How odd

Jean Andrews starts the book off with DUH how a computer works. Throughout the Myers book he uses these stupid childish analogies (eg "Man in the Box") that just get in the way of teaching the material. Is this a kindergarten book? I kept thinking Dr. Seuss would pop up. In addition, he has gone through and highlighted key terms in dark green. Ever try to photocopy a page with dark outline? I did not like his book at all.

BTW: In 2006 I was paid by CompTIA to fly to Chicago and help write the new A+ exams. Andrews was a favorite in making the exams.