Rating: 
Summary: Really is for dummies: make sure you're dum enough
Review: This book is well suited to eight year olds and adults who prefer a cute writing style to er, ahem, actual information. One of the things I was looking for was help backing up to a second hard disk. The book says to start NTbackup and read the help screens.Duh. I sent it back.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book for beginners, intermediate, or expert computer users. I like other things Woody has written (Mother of All Windows 95 books is a classic) and other Dummies books (Word 2000 for Windows for Dummies is good). But this book is poor. First, it isn't really "9 books in 1." The AOL "book" is a joke, clearly written with the intention for you to avoid AOL at all costs (minimizes the importance of chat rooms, nothing about automatic Zipping of e-mail attachments, nothing about accessing e-mail from outside the AOL client (hello does Netscape browser ring a bell?). The MSN "book" is even more of a joke (nothing about Money, nothing about free storage for pictures and web sites). The hardware "book" doesn't mention any brands and gives corny advice (optical mice only good for people with pets). Second, there is no practical advice on dealing with Windows on a day-to-day basis. It acts like all the problems have been solved with XP (wow the stability). Nothing on dealing with the co-branding, pop-ups (both OS and Internet), and spyware. So much of the advice is generic (get AV software installed, updated, and working), with no specifics. No whys (like why should I use IE over Netscape, why should I use Media Player over Real, why should I use built-in ZIP over WinZip). The basics just aren't considered. Third, this book is designed for teenage wannabe-geeks. Specifically, the only real hints in this book are game cheats (registry mods and the like). Fourth, the humor in this book is all too hard to find and falls flat. I am disappointed. This author can do so much better (check out his Office newsletters). Look elsewhere on this one folks.
Rating: 
Summary: How Dumb Are You?
Review: Woody has dissappointed us with this shallow book. It has none of the deep insight, hints, tips, and tricks found in his earlier books. No help on many details of my not so difficult install. No help on the many things that went wrong. No details of the oh-so-poorly documented Microsoft provided remedies. No explanation of where "My Documents" really goes or gets named in the three install options (Upgrade, New on Separate Drive from other MS OS, New on Same Drive as present MS OS) I must not be dumb enough. I found so little of value. I offer this book for re-sale to some real dummy.
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