Build Your Own Pentium III PC

Rating:
Summary: Build Your Own Pentium III PC
Review: As with most of the "build your own" books on the market, this one is pretty out of date. Also, the book supplies you with very little information which would help you select which components will best meet your needs and which components work best together (ie- which motherboards, video graphics boards ...). Basically this book just explains in very breif detail how the system all works together.

The most difficult thing in building your own system IMHO is deciding which components will best meet your needs and will work well together. I did not get any helpful info from this book along these lines. In fact the author does not even seem particularly knowledgeable about the subject matter in the book. I think I could have wrote a better book and I do not even consider myself a computer geek.

Bottom line, I waisted my money...

Rating:
Summary: Since when do authors get to rank their own books?
Review: As with most of the "build your own" books on the market, this one is pretty out of date. Also, the book supplies you with very little information which would help you select which components will best meet your needs and which components work best together (ie- which motherboards, video graphics boards ...). Basically this book just explains in very breif detail how the system all works together.

The most difficult thing in building your own system IMHO is deciding which components will best meet your needs and will work well together. I did not get any helpful info from this book along these lines. In fact the author does not even seem particularly knowledgeable about the subject matter in the book. I think I could have wrote a better book and I do not even consider myself a computer geek.

Bottom line, I waisted my money...

Rating:
Summary: To: Mr. Aubrey Pilgrim.
Review: English is not my mother tongue. But I was educated partly in the US. Frankly, I was appalled by the way you write. You, as a published author, I expected more from you. At least, most people would expect you to have a better command of your native language than those of us who are not native speakers of English. I have not read your book, but based on the comment you made here, I have a feeling that Mr. Steve Davy does have some good reasons to make those comments about you. In the tradition of "Freedom of Speech" in America, I hope you don't mind me for saying so.

Rating:
Summary: Build Your Own Pentium III
Review: Hi All, I am Aubrey Pilgrim, author of the series of BUILD YOUR OWN computer books. I have tried to keep the books simple enough for the intermediate user and technical enough to help all users. To be perfectly honest, you cannot save much building your own, but you can save a lot by knowing what is inside the computer and how it operates. Over 500,000 copies of my series have been sold since I first started writing them in 1987. A whole lot of people have told me that I have helped them understand computers. Some of my books have been used as text books. Thank you for buying my books. Aubrey Pilgrim, Los Angeles

Rating:
Summary: History and intent
Review: I have grown up with the author's books, on building a PC. Considering that from 386/486 there was not much around. I have still his 486, Pent II, when I get around to it get his Pent III.

I gave my son his earlier works to get started, and with a 2 week "intern" in a PC shop, he is now proudly showing me stuff. Granted his books are for the beginner/intermediate but there is just not many books out there who even attempt this. By the time they get printed, we see the next generation pent IV/giga herz which I hope the author deems to do that as well. Based on his start with some hands on and books like this and starting college he now can understand what is going on. In fact he was looking at Aubrey's Pent II book, so I will put the printout rating for Aubrey's Pent III book out, and hope there will be a similiar book on Pent IIII/AMD gigahertz forthcoming including the new memory, getting harddrives that are now 40-60 gigs.

His pent II book was discussing sub 10 gig drives. Anyway keep up the great work. Perhaps I will get a copy of the pent III and let my sone review it, since he is now overclocking his pent III putting cooling fans everywhere. Carey

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Summary: pentium III's arent socket 7 are they.
Review: I RECENTLY DECIDED TO BUILD A COMPUTER. I KNEW JUST ENOUGH TO BE DANGEROUS. I STARTED READING THIS BOOK, AND IT DID A GREAT JOB FILLING IN THE MISSING LINKS. IT IS A GREAT PURCHASE, AND I RECCOMEND IT TO ALL WHO KNOW ENOUGH TO BE DANGEROUS. IT HELPED ME TREMENDOUSLY, AND IT IS EASY TO UNDERSTAND. THE AUTHOR'S STORIES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES REALLY HELPED ME PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE ABOUT WHAT I NEEDED FOR MY SYSTEM.

Rating:
Summary: Very good book for the novice....
Review: I was a complete, absolute novice knowing nothing at all about PCs. This book is not just about instructions on how to make your own PC. It gives really important history and background information which is absolutely vital and fundamental to any novice trying to get a good grasp of the subject. By the time it came down to actually building my own PC, I had as good a grasp of the subject at this level as the author himself without having read any other book on the subject. It gives you all the information YOU need to be able to make your OWN judgement about what YOU WANT to build. Best of all, the author has written it in such a personal fashion that you will feel he is actually talking to you and you can imagine him working away in his garage - enabling you to see and appreciate things in a crystal clear way. It left me absolutely mesmerised. Every technical book is only valid for as long as the technology mentioned in it is also valid when you read it. Since computer technology moves really, really fast, the reader should consider some information that was current when the book was written to look at it from a historical point of view - this does not negate the validity of the information in any way. The author makes this fact clear by mentioning phrases like "By the time you read this...." followed by his comments about how things might have changed when you are reading the book at your time - and quite often he is spot on about his predictions, which I am sure needed a bit of digging. The flow of his language is wonderful and I feel sorry for those who criticise it because their first language isn't English - mine isn't either. The only matter you should be careful of is when you read about binary numbers but thats really to do with software at a core level - something that really did not concern me at this level. I have now made 2 PCs, connected to a third, made my own network, and studying MCSE to change my career. Congratulations on a book well conceived, thought out, planned, executed and written!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Author Gives His Own Book 5 Stars ?!?
Review: The book itself is so-so; it has some good information in it, nothing great, and you will certainly need to consult other sources, in print or on the Web, or get help from an expert, before you're able to build a fully functional computer.........

Rating:
Summary: A history of computers more than a hands-on guide
Review: This book contains some useful technical information about selecting components and hardware for your computer. Unfortunately, the author's woolly and fuddy-duddy writing style means that you've got your work cut out to learn everything you need to know to build your own.

Pilgrim, like many technical writers, seems incapable of writing in a coherent and logical manner, and his judgment of what is salient information often way off the mark. He can't or won't stick to the point -- which the book's title suggests is building your own computer. The book contains endless comparative anecdotes about his early computer purchases, and also spends far too much time measuring up obsolete XT, 286 and 386 systems with today's fastest machines. We all know computers are faster and cheaper now than they were five or ten years ago, so why keep going on about it? The book's title implies it is a hands-on manual, but in reality it often leans heavily toward being an overall history of computers, with far too much space wasted on discussing obsolete technology. This leads to a suspicion that the writer might have lifted large sections of text from his previous books and didn't bother to update them properly or remove outdated material.

Large sections are also devoted to discussing general computer usage (such as the ridiculous paragraph on "Designing a Good Presentation") in a tone that suggests they were written for a junior high class. "Facsimile machines have been around for quite a while," starts the section on the fax machine. Well thanks for pointing that one out for those of us who have been in prison or space. Hardly the kind of stuff someone who is seriously considering building a computer needs to be told. Some questionable grammar (particularly a consistent, irksome misuse of a definitive "the") and punctuation also slow down the reading process.

The book also contains endless repetition, with some passages appearing partially or in their entirety several times under different section headings throughout, sometimes even on the same page. Endless padding also pushes the book's page count well beyond what it needed to be. These last two points are the fault of the publisher -- this book sorely needs a good, critical edit (much like this review) and could easily have been condensed by 200 pages (ditto). Presumably the idea of repeated passages was for each section to function discretely, but in reality the information is so poorly organized it's necessary to read the book cover to cover to avoid missing vital pieces of technical information.

But the biggest criticism has to be reserved for the fact that, for a build-your-own guide that runs over 600 pages, this book is woefully lacking in specific help on actually putting your machine together. Instructions comprise little more than "plug the memory into the motherboard" etc., and the reviewer at the bottom of this page is accurate in saying there are only about 10 pages on putting a computer together. Considering a Pentium III is a Slot 1 machine, there is also far too much time spent talking about Socket 7's. Likewise, the author derides other books for their lack of information on formatting and partitioning hard drives, then proceeds to write an inadequate and confusing section on these two important procedures that first-time builders will definitely need help with.

Although Pilgrim seems to know his stuff technically, overall there is a feeling that this book was created without much attention to detail. Small inconsistencies and inaccuracies -- such as a reference to modern video cards having "32Kb" of VRAM (he surely means 32Mb) and in one instance USB supporting up to 128 devices (elsewhere he says, correctly, the number is 127), throw everything into doubt. There is also a feeling that the book was already outdated when it went to press -- always a problem of course with books on a fast-moving industry, but it seems they didn't even try to see that it was current when it hit the shelves.

I would give this book three stars as a general reference guide to hardware, but only one star as a step-by-step guide to building your own computer. Unfortunately yet another in the great tradition of hastily created and rather sloppy computer guides.