Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps, and Blunders [Paperback]

Jesse Torres (Author), Peter Sideris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 2005

Most self-help computer books speak in technobabble as if they were written for rocket scientist or computer geeks who live and breathe technology. Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps, and Blunders takes a different approach. This engaging and very accessible guide covers the types of problems all PC users will likely face at one time or another-so don't be caught off guard without it. The authors calm the fearful with easy to follow solutions and a humorous style. (Let's fact it-at some point all disasters, mishaps, and blunders appear humorous once you've gotten past them!) For a PC that is smashed, hacked, in flames, has come down with a nasty virus, or just isn't working as it should, this book covers it all with helpful tips to prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

Nothing strikers horror into the heart of a PC user faster than the words "Permanent Fatal Error" or seeing a PC that was working perfectly well seconds before melt down and send bizarre error messages. Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps, and Blunders covers a wide range of problems including security issues and theft, blunders arising from general clumsiness, disasters such as fire and floods, techniques for protecting important data from scammers and hackers, disasters that can be caused by nasty viruses, tips on buying devices without getting ripped off, techniques for avoiding hard drive crashes and recovering lost data, mishaps and potential disasters that can be caused by identity theft, and much more. You'll learn simple and practical ways to use and protect you PC and other support devices (like printers and scanners), and how to cope if disaster does strike. The book is cleverly organized by disasters, mishaps, and stupid blunders that can occur as you use your PC.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

• Shows you what to do quickly if you encounter both common and not so common hardware failures. Now you’ll have a solution if your computer bursts into flames or your kid spills soda on your keyboard (an all-too-common blunder)!

• The book is a very practical, hands-on, and entertaining read for consumer audiences. The true-life mishaps and blunders that are presented are designed to engage the reader and teach them quick fixes. For many readers, these horror stories will be reminders of similar accidents that have happened to them!

• Covers security issues, including what to do if others are reading your private files or logging your keys and stealing your identity. The disasters that can be caused by cyber scumbags are really freighting unless you immediately know what to do.

• Shows you what to do to protect yourself if your laptop, PC, or PDA is stolen or lost. You’ll also learn how to cope if your PIN/password is stolen or compromised or your credit card number is stolen and you find yourself with a $10,000 charge for lawn flamingos.

• Presents safe wireless networking techniques and easy ways to fix common problems that cause interference with your devices.

• Helps you ensure you’re getting what you pay for when you buy online. Learn how to avoid common fraud and deceptive sales practices including, Bait and Switch, the low/hi game, Out of Stock/Back Ordered, Missing Accessories, Last Year’s Model, and deceptive typos when buying devices.

• Discover techniques to prevent your PC from getting and spreading damaging viruses. Nothing will label you as a big loser faster than wiping out your friend’s PC with a virus your computer is distributing without your knowledge.

From the Author

Co-author Jesse Torres says, "As an IT consultant, I see wicked PC disasters every day. Sadly, most of these crises could be avoided with just a little planning. My intention in writing this book was to help arm everyone with common-sense advice on protecting their PCs and other devices, and learning how to recover from those unexpected catastrophes that always seem to happen at the worst possible time." Co-author Peter Sideris adds, "I’m always amazed at how vulnerable most computer users are to identity theft, theft of their laptops, or completely avoidable blunders, such as letting their kids play in their office around all their cables and wires. That’s just an accident waiting to happen. This book is a must-have for anyone who is worried that they’re not ready for a computer disaster – or someone who runs a computing environment and needs to prepare for the worst."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Paraglyph Press; 1 edition (January 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932111980
• ISBN-13: 978-1932111989
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,043,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy This Before You Need It, March 9, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps, and Blunders (Paperback)

There's basically only four kinds of things that can go wrong with your PC: lost or stolen, hardware failures, software failures, stolen data. Each of these, however, can really mess up your day.

Each of these however can be not solved but made much better with just a bit of advance planning. Losing your computer and/or crashing the disk drive is easy to fix if you have a backup, or if like Beethoven you remember everything in the manuscript you lost on the train.

Most of this book, however, turns out to be software oriented. It's here that the bad guys can attack your system from afar with virtually no chance of getting caught. Perhaps they just want to screw up your life with a virus they created just for fun. Perhaps they want to send you a never ending stream of advertising, even customized based on keeping a record of what web sites you've visited. But perhaps they also want to capture your credit card number so that they can use it to buy a new computer (to be shipped somewhere in Africa).

The first thing I look for on books like this is CoolWebSearch. If they talk about it, they know whereof they speak. And sure enough CoolWebSearch is discussed on page 231. The book says: "Removing ... can be an extremely complicated process. He'd absolutely right. When one of my companies machines gets one of these, sometimes all I can do is go back to the last system restore file, or even start over with a new version of the operating system.

Invaluable help if you do just a little bit of work in advance.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good preventative medicine..., May 15, 2005

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps, and Blunders (Paperback)

When things go wrong with your PC and/or on-line existence, you need quick help in figuring out how to fix it (or how you should have stayed out of it in the first place). Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps, and Blunders by Jesse M. Torres and Peter Sideris (Paraglyph Press) makes for some pretty interesting reading.

Chapter List: Theft and Loss; Hardware Disasters and Mishaps; Software Disasters and Mishaps; Network Disasters and Mishaps; Wireless Networking; Internet Fraud; Spam; Surviving Viruses; Junkware: Malware, Adware, and Spyware; Email and Other Internet Hazards; Travel Mishaps and Disasters; Power Adapters and Batteries; Backup and Recovery; Digital Lifestyle Hazards; Piracy; Index

Each chapter starts with a list of "disasters to avoid" and "mishaps and blunders to run from". Within each chapter, there are subtopics that will teach you about certain things (like how data theft occurs, how to prevent and detect data theft, etc.). The rest of the chapter is made up of "how do I" questions that address topics within the chapter. Throw in quite a few "horror story" sidebars based on real life experiences from the authors, and you have a pretty readable and practical book.

It was tempting to originally think of this book as a troubleshooting guide... a resource you would turn to when you had to fix something. But really, it's more of a "be prepared" guide. Reading this material *before* you need it will save you a heap of head- and heartaches. This isn't the book that contains a bunch of technical step-by-step instructions on how to get into hardcore repair of your wireless router. It may help you, but it's best to use the material to stay out of trouble in the first place. And the digital lifestyle hazards chapter is *definitely* better to use as preventative medicine. It's easier to reset a PDA than shut down a stalker...

Good material for those who are not uber-geeks who live in cyber-space. It's a book that could easily pay for itself in short order...

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the rise of malware, March 1, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps, and Blunders (Paperback)

Looking at the litany of mishaps that could befall your PC, as described by the book, one might wonder if you would buy it in the first place, had you known of these. Realistically, many of us live by, if not through, our PCs. So you still need one.

The authors cover hardware and software problems. Many. Like your disk getting flaky and crashing. Perhaps just a function of time.

But in some ways, the software issues are the ones that have grown, as compared to a book of this ilk written ten years ago. Now, the authors devote a chapter each to the areas of Internet fraud, spam and junkware. A sad sign of our times. The discussion on Internet fraud talks briefly about phishing, amongst other topics. While the advice on avoiding it is good, the chapter perhaps does not give enough space to this hugely growing blight. In the two years to the end of 2004, it rose some 7000%. It has emerged as a danger to many, especially those new to the Internet. Far more dangerous than being spammed by rebates, which is another topic in this chapter, to which a similar amount of space is allocated.

There is also an amusing chapter on various other Internet hazards. In part, it declaims about the possible perils of meeting people online. You know, online dating and all that. And, like, gee, shall I meet him/her in person? In a dark alley, perhaps? Another chapter that speaks to our times.