PCs: The Missing Manual

Introduction

In January 1983, Time magazine featured a PC on the cover as its “Man of the Year.” The accompanying article quoted a then-recent advertisement describing why everybody needs one: “A PC can send letters at the speed of light, diagnose a sick poodle, custom-tailor an insurance program in minutes, and test recipes for beer.”

Nearly 25 years later, email arrives within minutes, not microseconds (that is, as long as the messages aren’t trapped by a spam or virus filter). Veterinarians still diagnose poodles by looking in their ears, programmers do the grunt work to tally your insurance premium, and most people prefer testing their own beer recipes, thank you very much.

In short, the personal computer has not quite lived up to its early hype. One major culprit? The modern PC has grown so complicated that most people treat it as a necessary nuisance that performs a few simple tasks, but rarely with grace. Instead of an exciting liberator, the machine’s become a clumsy commodity, like an old VCR that mostly manages to record your show, but never quite displays the correct time.

That’s where this book comes in. In clear, jargon-free language, it helps you perform the many basic computing tasks that have grown complex, complicated, or just plain annoying:

• Finding an Internet provider, and setting up your PC so you can browse the Web, send email, and share the Internet connection with other PCs in your home.

• Buying and configuring a wireless network so the signal reaches everywhere ...