Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: Anyone that works on pcs at all needs this book in their arsenal. It has many support numbers that come in handy! Don't pass this one up!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: Anyone that works on pcs at all needs this book in their arsenal. It has many support numbers that come in handy! Don't pass this one up!
Rating:
Summary: Help right at your fingertips!
Review: As a young technician 11 years ago I had very little reference material. Every subject was covered in huge hard to understand books, had I known about Pocket PCREF then troubleshooting would have been a whole lot easier.Packed into this pocket book is a world of computer information that would make a great supplement to the study for A+ certification. From the ASCII codes to number conversions and keyboard shortcuts, hard drive reference tables, pc hardware and so much more are all included. The book has enough detail that the information is a real help in the technical arena. Every one can benefit from what this book gives. As an instructor for A+ certification, this book has become a standard for every student to receive. Looking for the one book that covers about twelve others, look no further than the Pocket PCREF and you'll find your answer. Sequoia Publishing has a whole host of other reference books as well stop by their website and take a look, you're money will be well spent.
Rating: 
Summary: Later edition now available
Review: Currently Pocket PCRef is in its 6th edition and can be ordered through amazon.com. Please see the other listings for this book for updated information. Currently Pocket PCRef is published as a new edition each year with scheduled release dates of early November
Rating: 
Summary: Could be much better
Review: I am editing this review after having owned this book for several months to LOWER my original rating. I was originally disappointed because it was somewhat out of date. This disappointment has increased as I have realized that it has almost nothing of value to offer with newer equipment. In fact, I find that the only reason I ever reach for it is because I've made important notes in the flyleaves. Original review follows: Just got the "hot off the presses" 11th edition (hot as I write this anyway). While it's somewhat updated and the best yet, it leaves a lot of room for disappointment. Perhaps its time to replace the resistor color code tables with summaries of the IEEE and ITU standards, certainly someting more needed in the 2001 world of PCs. When was the last time anyone changed a resistor in a PC other than at the component manufacturer site? And it doesn't yet contain a power supply wire color code, which would be far more useful than resistor codes. There is info on Win98 but not on Win2K or ME (or even NT). The processor and socket list is expanded (long overdue) but still hopelessly out of date and incomplete (and wrong in at least a couple of places). Fixed disk drive lists are way behind the times with only the most minimal information to help keep the confusing IDE/SCSI/EIDE PIO 1/2/3/4/5 ATA33/66/100/133 drive, BIOS, MB chipset and cable standards straight.
This is a good book for troubleshooting, repairing and maintaining the older PC, but it is not even treading water well in a world of P4 or Thunderbird processors, multi-gigabyte drives or 400Mhz RIMM memory. Still, I have to give it four stars (would be 4.5 if Amazon allowed) because there simply is nothing better out there except keeping file folders full of manufacturer specs, white papers and web page printouts.
Rating:
Summary: Could be much better
Review: I am editing this review after having owned this book for several months to LOWER my original rating. I was originally disappointed because it was somewhat out of date. This disappointment has increased as I have realized that it has almost nothing of value to offer with newer equipment. In fact, I find that the only reason I ever reach for it is because I've made important notes in the flyleaves. Original review follows: Just got the "hot off the presses" 11th edition (hot as I write this anyway). While it's somewhat updated and the best yet, it leaves a lot of room for disappointment. Perhaps its time to replace the resistor color code tables with summaries of the IEEE and ITU standards, certainly someting more needed in the 2001 world of PCs. When was the last time anyone changed a resistor in a PC other than at the component manufacturer site? And it doesn't yet contain a power supply wire color code, which would be far more useful than resistor codes. There is info on Win98 but not on Win2K or ME (or even NT). The processor and socket list is expanded (long overdue) but still hopelessly out of date and incomplete (and wrong in at least a couple of places). Fixed disk drive lists are way behind the times with only the most minimal information to help keep the confusing IDE/SCSI/EIDE PIO 1/2/3/4/5 ATA33/66/100/133 drive, BIOS, MB chipset and cable standards straight.
This is a good book for troubleshooting, repairing and maintaining the older PC, but it is not even treading water well in a world of P4 or Thunderbird processors, multi-gigabyte drives or 400Mhz RIMM memory. Still, I have to give it four stars (would be 4.5 if Amazon allowed) because there simply is nothing better out there except keeping file folders full of manufacturer specs, white papers and web page printouts.
Rating:
Summary: Pocket PCRef
Review: I have used this book to determine HD sizes of old drives. Finding it an excellent reference, a definite MUST for all PC support and repair individuals.
Rating:
Summary: Pocket PC Ref - - "Gotta Have"
Review: I have used this little "Giant" of a reference book for over 10 years. Don't know what I would do without it.
Rating:
Summary: The book that can pull you out of hot water real quick.
Review: I run a medical hardware company and provide this book to every technician in my employee. Why, because it will provent a sinking ship from going under and the technician has at his finger tips every little setting or IRQ that is needed to support our equipment. I only wish it included Windows 95 and hard drive jumper settings. I'm looking forward to the next release.
Signed,
Lance D. Stevens
Owner ProMed Integrated Solution
Rating:
Summary: My "Magic Book"
Review: I volunteer two nights a week helping train people to recycle
"old" donated PCs so we can farm them out to people who
cannot afford new ones and to not-for-profit organizations who just
have a basic word processing/e-mail need. Therefore, any given
night I might see ten different PCs varying from a 386 being stripped
of useful parts, to a high end 486 being upgraded for one last cycle
of usefulness, to occasional Pentiums. It goes without saying that
none of them come with any documentation at all, and a lot has changed
in the past 8 - 10 years in the PC world. I got my hands on [a
recent edition] of this book...about a month ago, and it is dog-eared
already. It's saved a fair quantity of old hardware, such as disk
drives, that we would have junked otherwise, simply because we could
find out about them. It's saved many hours of fiddling around in old
BIOS. Its chronology of DOS and Windows even saved some time recently
when I had to say how many years I had worked with particular releases
of software. I call it my "Magic Book", and so do the
people I'm training. When you do what I do, it's almost as valuable
as a nut driver, and probably saves more time.
| 
