First comes the sinking feeling. Uh-oh, that's not supposed to happen! Then comes the scramble to find the answer—and since the computer's down, scratch any online help files.
I've had this experience on my own behalf, and in providing tech support at work and at home. What you really need when something goes south on your PC is this nifty reference by Jesse M. Torres and Peter Sideris, Surviving PC Disasters, Mishaps and Blunders. To start with, the language is accessible. You don't have to be a tech-guru to find and apply the advice that will fix your problem. You can read the general explanation, a couple of pages for each major failure type, or zip right to the specific issue for a quick fix.
I Just Broke the Antenna on My Wireless Device, Is That OK?The book starts with the biggest possible PC disaster, theft and loss, which covers everything from data theft from your PC and PDA to actual, physical theft of your computer. From there, the authors discuss recovery after all kinds of hardware catastrophes, then swing into salvation from software fiascoes.
Broken hearts, broken promises, broken antennas—no matter what it is, broken is never OK. [This profound observation is followed by four possible fixes, and a TIP on replacement.]
What Can I Do If My Computer Boots Really Slowly?Software fixes concentrate on Windows XP issues and error messages. I guess the subtext is that if you still have a Windows 95 PC, it's a PC mishap or blunder all by itself. But no reference can provide answers for the whole PC heritage of operating systems, so I accept that limitation. The real fix for an older system, the authors seem to say, is to upgrade to XP.
We have to think that the real reason Starbucks got its start was because of all the PC users out there who were tired of waiting for their PCs to boot up and didn't have anything else to do. The more you use your PC, the more cluttered it can get with all of the software you have installed, and this can really slow it down. In fact this has become such a big issue that our publisher recently released a book titled Degunking Windows that has rapidly become one of the top-selling computer books...
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Article comments
1 - Fima Fimovich
I would like to send you some links to publications
about my criminal case. I worked for Mitsubishi
Electric Automation in Vernon Hills, IL, USA.
My case are getting public attention now as an example
of miscarriage of justice. I could not defend myself,
because I did not have enough money for computer
expert. I was forced to confess for possession of
child porn. I got browser hijackers while browsing the
web. I was redirected to illigal sites against my
will. Some illigal pictures were found on my hard
drive only after
recovering in unallocated clusters, without dates of
files creation/download.
I do not know how can courts press widely on people to
convict them, while whole Internet is a mess.
This is my story in inquisition21.com. There is all
information about case written by Irish writer Brian
Rothery.
http://www.inquisition21.com/article~view~7~page_num~3.html
This is publication in Wired news
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63391,00.html