PC Annoyances Author: Steve Bass Pages: 176 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates ISBN: 0-596-00593-8 Summary: A diversion from O'Reilly's standard fare, but not too bad. Review Date: 7 February, 2004

While modern PCs are great time-savers, they also bring with them their share of annoyances, particularly when run with Windows on them. O'Reilly's PC Annoyances seeks to alleviate some of that pain, by offering a large assortment of tricks, tips, and utilities to help take the edge off of the most common annoyances associated with Windows, Windows software, and PCs in general. But above and beyond just dealing with annoyances, the book also offers a lot of tips for making your PC experience more pleasant overall.

The book focuses on the following main topics, and each section provides numerous tips, solutions to common annoyances, and utilities that can make life easier in each particular area.

• Email
• Windows
• Internet
• Microsoft Office
• Windows Explorer
• Music, Video, and CDs
• Hardware

What I liked about the book
First and foremost, there are some really good tips in the book, that will save the average Windows user a lot of headaches, and a lot of time. While the book's author is an avid Windows XP fan, he does in many cases point to solutions available (or the lack thereof) for other versions of Windows which is helpful for folks like me who are content to slide by on Windows 2000 for a while.

The author makes frequent use of SnipUrl Web addresses when pointing to online content. SnipUrl is a service that provides a way to offer 'shortcut urls' to Web addresses that otherwise would be a pain to type into a browser. While at first I thought the idea was a bit hokey, it's actually quite convenient. As a result, a minimal amount of typing is all that's required to access most URLs listed in the book.

One fun feature in the book are the side bars which mostly lead you to websites related to the content at hand, but there are a few that lead you to fun time-wasters. And we all know there's nothing like wasting time on meaningless diversions to calm down over computer annoyances.

What I didn't like about the book
This is the kind of book that will be outdated in not too much time. While the author does make efforts to cover multiple versions of Windows, the programs offered, the urls to maintain, and the methods mentioned may be obsolete within a few years. But that's not to say it isn't useful now.

A lot of the solutions to the annoyances covered in the book come in the form of third-party utilities, some of which are free, and many of which are not. I'm the type of user who doesn't like to shell out a lot of money to solve my computing problems (which is one reason why I like Linux so much), so many of these solutions, while useful, can put a dent in your pocketbook in the aggregate.

Who will like it?
Anyone who uses Windows on a regular basis will likely find a lot of useful ideas in the book to make their computing life a little more pleasant. This would be a good book to give to your mom, dad, or a grandparent. For folks like me (a heavy Linux user, and an occasional Windows user), the book isn't quite so useful (and often reminded me just why I prefer Linux :-). The sidebar diversions are pretty amusing at times, though.

Overall Rating: 7/10. A lot of good information, and helpful tips for Windows users.