BKSTRTPC.RVW 940118 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Heather Rignanesi, Marketing, x340, 73171.657@Compuserve.com P.O. Box 520 26 Prince Andrew Place Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T8 416-447-5101 fax: 416-443-0948 or Tiffany Moore, Publicity tiffanym@aw.com Bob Donegon bobd@aw.com John Wait, Editor, Corporate and Professional Publishing johnw@aw.com Tom Stone, Editor, Higher Education Division tomsto@aw.com Philip Sutherland, Schulman Series 74640.2405@compuserve.com 1 Jacob Way Reading, MA 01867-9984 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 5851 Guion Road Indianapolis, IN 46254 800-447-2226 "The Streetwise Guide to PCs", Jerome/Taylor, 1993, 0-201-60839-1, U$14.95 Those of us who have been around the computer world for any length of time have seen a great many "How to Buy a PC" seminars, articles and user group meeting talks. They generally offer a lot of helpful advice and useful information for the novice. I have, however, often noted personal bias being delivered with the same force and weight as known and tested fact. The neophyte generally comes away with a much better knowledge of the computer market--but also with a number of unsubstantiated prejudices. Here, then, is a book on the same topic. Containing far more material than any one-hour talk or magazine article, it nevertheless has some of the same tone. Those wise in the ways of computer purchasing will many times breathe an "Amen!" to much of what is here. There are also, however, personal biases and blind spots that the newcomer will have difficulty recognising. Chapter one is a general diatribe against the industry as a whole. As vitriolic as it may sound to the newcomer, the authors may, in fact, be *under*stating the case. Chapter two states that software is central to the whole process, and gives tips for evaluating the major applications. The remaining eight chapters are devoted to hardware. There are some easily identifiable oddities. The statement that Windows' management of resources makes things easier obviously comes from someone who has never had to check the five completely different print menus under Windows to find out why nothing is coming off the printer. Some items seem to be subject to time lag, as with the insistence that 386 and 486 CPUs are maker- independent. (This might have been true earlier, but the 486 market is now an utter shambles.) The authors still cling to their claim that all surge protectors are created equal. I found the section on virus protection to be fairly reasonable--except that they still get the Stoned message wrong, think all scanners are equally effective, and don't know about shareware scanners. In fact, shareware doesn't get much of a shake in spite of the railing against overpricing and software bloat. In addition, some of the recommendations for protection may give a false sense of security. The authors frequently repeat the refrain that one should never by anything with cash or cheque: put it on a credit card so that you will have some fallback. The use of a credit card, however, does *not* necessarily protect you. Once you sign the charge slip, you are committed to honour that debt. The credit card company *may* choose to reverse the charge and not pay the merchant, but that is at *their* discretion, and they are not automatically on your side. (The credit card company may take several months even to decide whether or not to reverse the charge: the representatives I talked to, at the credit card service office, the local bank, the head office complaint department and the head office PR office refused to give any upper bound or time limit for a decision. The PR department initially stated that paying by card was the same as paying by cash, but refused to answer when asked to comment specifically about the case of defective equipment.) You really are alone out there: I recently checked up on the Better Business Bureau, and found that while the technology the BBB is using for phone access to reports is impressive, the reports themselves are less so. A company which has had several disputes in the past, and has a current dispute outstanding, is listed as being in "satisfactory" standing, and the BBB had "received no complaints" during its existence. The BBB also had a chance to respond to this and indicated that it was because of their "standard reporting language" imposed from head office. (BBB is a franchise.) Complaints are not entered into the automated system until proven, beyond doubt, to be "valid": the consumer is not allowed an opportunity to respond to the final offer from the merchant. Decisions on validity are made by the BBB. The BBB is paid by the vendor. The conclusion is left as an exercise to the reader. (The General Manager of the local BBB stated that more detailed information is available from the counsellors, although this is not made at all clear from the automated system. I checked this out later, and it turns out not to be the case. She also stated that most people deal with the counsellors rather than the automated system, which doesn't surprise me in the least.) In the absence of any better, though, this book is to be recommended for beginners *before* they buy a computer. One of the particularly nice features is a sample advertisement introducing every chapter and dissected for "lies". Get some street smarts before you go buy a PC. And never buy anything on the spot. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKSTRTPC.RVW 940118 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Oct. '94) Springer-Verlag