Rating: 
Summary: The cover and title of the book is impressive.
Review: Please help me, I am from Malaysia (South East Asia). I want to buy this book but I dont have a credit card. Could you tell me any other mode of transaction. Or is it in the market in the Asian region.
Rating: 
Summary: Big Thumbs Down!
Review: Save your money! This book was a real disappointment. It illustrates, poorly, how to install the components. Most or all of the parts you will buy for your computer will do a better job of illustrating and explaining this. The photo illustrations are poor and the explanations even worse. If you're building your first computer, you will find yourself searching for alternative sources for help.It has no troubleshooting guide, so after its all said and done, and all of your parts are installed, if something doesn't work, you're left wondering what to do or who to call. He also does not explain what to expect after you finish building and hook up your monitor and power the machine up for the first time. If you have a blank monitor screen, you're left wondering what to do. No explanation here. The book jumps ahead to how to load an operating system, assuming all went well. I had to search for other sources and actually relied more on the various manufacturers' installation guides that come with their parts, than I did on this book. I feel as though I threw away my money on this book. Big thumbs down!! Rachel (This review refers to the second editon, published August, 2000.) --This text refers to the Paperback edition
Rating:
Summary: ESSENTIAL IN THE COMPUTER TECHNICIAN UPGRADE KIT
Review: This book clearly guide throw the building process of a pentium or amd computer. A lot of pictures and an easy step by step approach to assembly a computer. Also include the Windows 98 installation.
Rating:
Summary: If you have the Motivation you will do it!!!!!
Review: This book is great. Although the book does not explain every part in details (230 pages), it does a hell of a good job. I bought the Third Edition. I do have to say that if you are a true beginner, and what I mean by a beginner, is that you don't know anything about a computer, you might have a hard time, but is up to the beholder to get what he/she wants to achieve. I also have to say that the first 3 chapters are an "Introduction to PC Hardware and in general how they work".
Let me give the specs of the system That I build: 1 PENTIUM III 1.13GHZ-tualatin
2 ASUS MOTHERBOARD(cpu range up to 2.0GHZ)
3 RAID 0+1 Controller Card
4 Two 80GB MAXTOR 7200RPM
5 ONE GB CRUCIAL PC-133MHZ SDRAM
6 CREATIVE LAB VIDEO CARD 64MB RAM (DDR)
7 NIC (Network Interface Card)
8 MODEM V.90
9 CREATIVE LAB SOUND CARD WITH TRUETABLE AND POLIPHONY
10 SONY-DVDROM 16X
11 TDK-CDRW - 24x10x48(BEST BURNERS!!)
12 IOMEGA-100/250MB ZIP DRIVER
13 REGULAR FLOPPY DRIVER
14 350 WATTS POWER SUPPLY. By the way, I also overclocked the motherboard to maximize the speed of my CPU(The speed of my CPU now is 1.8GHZ, the default was 1.13ghz) although I WARN YOU, be very careful, you might end up burning your motherboard and not to mention ruin your processor or your complete system. In order to OVERCLOCK try getting a more detail book and reading the manual that comes with your motherboard. ...
Rating:
Summary: If you have the Motivation you will do it!!!!!
Review: This book is great. Although the book does not explain every part in details (230 pages), it does a hell of a good job. I bought the Third Edition. I do have to say that if you are a true beginner, and what I mean by a beginner, is that you don't know anything about a computer, you might have a hard time, but is up to the beholder to get what he/she wants to achieve. I also have to say that the first 3 chapters are an "Introduction to PC Hardware and in general how they work".
Let me give the specs of the system That I build: 1 PENTIUM III 1.13GHZ-tualatin
2 ASUS MOTHERBOARD(cpu range up to 2.0GHZ)
3 RAID 0+1 Controller Card
4 Two 80GB MAXTOR 7200RPM
5 ONE GB CRUCIAL PC-133MHZ SDRAM
6 CREATIVE LAB VIDEO CARD 64MB RAM (DDR)
7 NIC (Network Interface Card)
8 MODEM V.90
9 CREATIVE LAB SOUND CARD WITH TRUETABLE AND POLIPHONY
10 SONY-DVDROM 16X
11 TDK-CDRW - 24x10x48(BEST BURNERS!!)
12 IOMEGA-100/250MB ZIP DRIVER
13 REGULAR FLOPPY DRIVER
14 350 WATTS POWER SUPPLY. By the way, I also overclocked the motherboard to maximize the speed of my CPU(The speed of my CPU now is 1.8GHZ, the default was 1.13ghz) although I WARN YOU, be very careful, you might end up burning your motherboard and not to mention ruin your processor or your complete system. In order to OVERCLOCK try getting a more detail book and reading the manual that comes with your motherboard. ...
Rating: 
Summary: First Time Computer Builder
Review: This guy has built some computers before. He has some excellent insights into the computer parts and functions. What you need versus what you want..."don't buy tomorrows technology today...you can easily upgrade it later saving hundreds ($500). Some good advice. I felt good about going forward with the build. As the author states, he can't write in detail about everything. So, you should be prepared to pay ten cents per page for his book. He's not wordy...and he's got a sense of humor if your in the right frame of mind. The computer building business must be getting tougher to make a buck these days. I researched my parts using what Vendors were using in thier builds and then researched them via the internet. Try Pricewatch.com; Motherboards.com; and use a search engine for computer component reviews. Then talk to the sales people...they'll help you for a sell. Even if you buy your computer prebuilt, you should go through the reading and research so you can pick out a computer with right components you need and not just buzzword names. Go ahead a try to build one. If you get in trouble, just be prepared to let the computer store down the road bail you out for a nominal fee.
Rating:
Summary: WOW! This is a GREAT book for FIRST TIME PC BUILDERS!
Review: This is an excellent book for anybody who wants to build their own computer. Even if you don't know any of the computer parts, this book fully details every part of the computer and how they work. The author introduces computer terms and allows the reader to understand what they mean in simple terms. I am 13 years old, and am making my own computer thanks to this book. The book makes things simple, building a PC is not half as hard as it seems. The book is filled with photos, allowing you to see every process of assembling the computer. This book will teach you in normal language how to make a desktop or tower. Not to mention, this book was written recentely and includes PIII cpu's, AMD processors, and even DVD-ROM drives. However, to make your own computer following this book, you must be willing to specd at least $500.00. I highly recommend this book to any person, any age, who wants to make their own computer. However, this book seems to leave some questions about assembly unanswered, and a little research by yourself might be necessary. Overall, this is a simple, fun book to read that makes PC building very easy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: very useful for the price
Review: This is an inexpensive book, and for the price you get a lot of good practical knowledge. My goal was the following. After buying a brand new computer complete with trimmings I wanted to get some more use out of my old computer. I run Windows on the new and Linux on the old -- I need both OS's and prefer to avoid a dual boot system. After researching in this book and on the web I decided to buy a minitower with motherboard (a "bare bones" setup) and to re-use the monitor, keyboard, mouse, disks, network card, and CD-ROM from the old computer. This book gave me the confidence I needed to plan and perform this job. It worked fine, and my refurbished old computer became far more productive. The money I spent on the book was recovered several times over.
Rating:
Summary: very useful for the price
Review: This is an inexpensive book, and for the price you get a lot of good practical knowledge. My goal was the following. After buying a brand new computer complete with trimmings I wanted to get some more use out of my old computer. I run Windows on the new and Linux on the old -- I need both OS's and prefer to avoid a dual boot system. After researching in this book and on the web I decided to buy a minitower with motherboard (a "bare bones" setup) and to re-use the monitor, keyboard, mouse, disks, network card, and CD-ROM from the old computer. This book gave me the confidence I needed to plan and perform this job. It worked fine, and my refurbished old computer became far more productive. The money I spent on the book was recovered several times over.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding , very informative & easy to read !
Review: This was the most informative book on building computers i have ever read , and i have read a few also the pictures were very graphic and easy to see and understand and very helpfull , i would recomend this book to anyone who was considering building a PC or who just wanted to see how they were put togeather, operate and what you can do with them , also a BIG + in this book was the fact that it dealt with multiple systems AMD & PENTIUM where as most books dont go into detail on anything but the pentium system so in turn this was an outstanding book and on a scale of 1-10 it is a + 11 :) i will recommond this book to anyone looking for information about computers . and my special thanks to MR.MORRIS ROSENTHAL well done and i look forward to more writeings by him . THANK YOU !
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