Steve Bass
1 Amazingly useful book
If you use a PC, you should consider picking up this book. I've subscribed to Bass's free PC World newsletter (http://www.pcworld.com/resource/columnist/0,colid,43,00.asp), which I also recommend, for more than a year. I bought PC Annoyances mainly as a gesture of appreciation for the newsletter, and it's turned out to be a great purchase, with lots of helpful tips (finally I can delete old System Restore points) and URLs for mostly free software. Details, including a sample chapter, are available at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pcannoy2/.
And no, I haven't taken a bribe from Bass for this review, though my PayPal account, like the Hotel California, is programmed to receive.
2 PC Annoyances Second Edition
This second edition of PC Annoyances has been updated and expanded to include the new developments in PC and Internet technology, including SP-2 for Windows XP, and 150 new tips and workarounds for common PC annoyances. A question and answer format is used throughout to describe each annoyance, with a corresponding solution. PC users at all levels of ability will find many excellent suggestions in the book, and learn to work faster, smarter, and free of frustration. With this book, you can get things to work your way. Author Steve Bass has set up a web site where the mostly-free utilities mentioned in the book can be found. Ed L.
3 Great Book
Steve; Just wanted to say thank you for the copy of your book.I have already started using some of the tips,and already can see an improvement in the performance of my PC. Thanks
again and keep up the good work
Ed McFadden
4 PC Annoyances - No more!
Anyone dealing with email, the web or Microsoft will find a wealth of useful info in PC Annoyances II.
I have gotten more ways to tweak and twist Microsoft XP to be able to use it to its fullest potential than I ever got from trying to decipher the XP manual.
Whether you think you know it all or are a newbie to the wonderful world of computing, you need this book.
5 Outstanding practical tips
Steve's sense of humor and style is perhaps the best in the PC business - but that's not the only (or even the main) reason to read this book. It's chock full of SOLUTIONS to those pebbles in your PC shoe that may not seem like a very big deal to Bill Gates & Co. or other industry powers-that-be, but can literally drive you (and me) CRAZY!
If there were any justice in the PC cosmos, Steve Bass would be rich and Bill Gates would be a LOT more helpful - but things being as they are, I'll settle for knowing that Steve Bass is enormously helpful and that buying this book just might help encourage him to write another (and another and another...)
6 Helpful books for Windows users
I loved both of Steve Bass' PC Annoyance books. I find them very helpful when encountering PC problems and Windows problems. Reading through his book, I find things that hadn't even occurred to me and used his fixes to make my typing and surfing experiences easier. I definitely recommend you buy this book! It's not very expensive, but it will save you lots of time and headaches.
7 A must read for any PC user
I was a user group president for over 10 years, I also do an early morning computer show on our local ABC station and teach seniors the basics at a local college. As you might guess I get hundreds of questions on a daily basis form a lot of very frustrated folks.
I recommend PC Annoyances and just about any book from O'Reilly as the solution to many of their headaches.
It is an easy read, has fantastic support, and the fixes work, what more could you ask for?
David A. Kerr-Burke
Corpus Christi Advanced Technologies www.ccatech.com
Computer Corner on KIII-TV (ABC) Thursday mornings www.kiiitv.com
Coastal Area Users Group, Inc. a 501(c)(3) non-profit www.caug.org
Del Mar Senior Education http://www.delmar.edu/specserv/seniors.html
8 Fun, irreverent, and pays for itself in short order...
No matter how necessary the PC is to your very existence, there are times you want to pitch the beast out the window. It's either irritating hardware glitches or software designed by monkeys. The second edition of PC Annoyances by Steve Bass can help you mend your love/hate relationship with silicon. It's good stuff...
Chapter List: Email Annoyances; Windows Annoyances; Internet Annoyances; Microsoft Office Annoyances; Windows Explorer Annoyances; Music, Video, and CD Annoyances; Hardware Annoyances; Index
If you haven't seen an Annoyances book before, it's a series of questions or statements (like SP2 Blocks Skype or Back Up Your Autocorrections) with an annoyance and a fix listed for each one. Under each of the Annoyances chapters, you'll have subsections like Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Outlook/Outlook Express annoyances under the Microsoft Office annoyances area. Depending on just how annoying the software or hardware is, you may have five to 20 ways to reduce your frustration level. So, if you don't think the current tip applies to you, keep reading as the next one probably will. Some of these you'll know already, many you'll never have heard of, and others will prompt the "you mean I can change that?" moment (or at least it did for me!). Because Steve's writing style is irreverent and conversational, you almost feel as if you're sitting ringside with him and someone else as they solve the computing hassles we all deal with daily.
If that was it, it'd be plenty valuable. But there's more. There are a number of sidebar tips that don't necessarily fit into the question/answer format, but are just as important. For instance, he devotes a large sidebar to the best way to capture screen prints to show brain-dead tech support people that the screen really *does* show what you said. You may already know how to do that, but it's always worth seeing if there's a better way. He also offers a multitude of URLs you can visit to download free or cheap utilities to do things that you just can't do any other way. Want to fill out forms automatically? Check out the free RoboForms software he recommends. Need to remove hidden meta data in your Microsoft Office documents? Check out the tool from Microsoft that will clean them up. There are all sorts of gems like those on every page.
The book is a rare blend of humor and utility in a fun and easy format, and it will easily pay for itself in short order. Highly recommended.
9 Regarding PC Annoyances, Second Edition by Steve Bass
Even after being into computers for 18 years, I can say that I really enjoyed Steve Bass's book. Definitely not the kind of book you read from cover to cover, but each page stands by itself and is another little pleasant surprise, most of which I didn't know about my PCs. Steve is knowledgeable and his book is well written.
10 PC Annoyances - Second Edition
I didn't think anything could be more useful than the first edition of PC Annoyances but Steve Bass manages to outdo himself with this edition. I work with my PC virtually all day long and Bass has captured many of the annoyances that annoy me; now I have ways to tame them.
This is not a book to relegate to your bookshelf; its place is right on your desk next to your PC. Now that I have it, I don't know how I managed without it.
11 PC Annoyances Help an Annoyed Person
It's great to find out that my PC annoyances are not unique. Just from initially flipping through to skim the contents, I discovered the ShopSafe concept. Now I'm wondering why my credit card company didn't make me aware of this feature. Maybe it was just something obscure that I missed in all those reams of paper about privacy that they keep sending. And that was just the beginning! Steve's book is a gold mine of information
12 Great tips for novice and expert
"PC Annoyances" Second Edition is even better than the First Edition - it's funnier and unabashedly biased toward programs and solutions sure to thrill both novice and expert. The beautiful simple solutions to sometimes complex problems will make your day. The book's format makes it easy to browse for goodies. One good tip is worth the price of the book, and I'm confident you'll find many zinger winners here.
