"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Let me clarify for the non-English majors out there.
Rather than cramming a dizzying list of computer parts down the reader's throat like most A+ guides do, Meyers starts from ground zero and presents the reader with the same sets of problems that faced the original designers of the PC: you have just designed a chip that can handle thousands of calculations per second. Now how do you talk to it? How do you get other components to communicate with it? How do you know when it's listening?
By explaining to you exactly how each part was designed to work with that central processing chip--and why--you not only understand how the PC works without months of rote memorisation, but you have the additional advantage of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. In other words, you know where and why things tend break down. Which is exactly what you want for the A+.
Meyers' explanations are very good, each building on the previous topic, and there are scads of generally crude-but-effective illustrations. Another strong point is that Meyers has extensive photographs of computer components, jacks and motherboards for the novice--study this book carefully and you'll never confuse an RJ-11 with an RJ-45 jack again.
If the book can be said to have a minor flaw, it's that Meyers always errs on the side of giving too much information. Rather than having you study for the exam alone, he genuinely wants you to understand how computers work in the real world. (For example, he devotes an entire chapter to electrical concepts and measuring with multimeters simply because he believes that power supplies shouldn't be just thrown away.) Generally this is an admirable approach, except for two notable instances:
The majority of the book focuses on hardware, but the DOS and Windows chapters are fairly extensive and should be more than enough to help you pass. A minor kvetch here is that, in his efforts to be relentlessly thorough, he'll frequently give you scads of switch options, listed alphabetically, for old programs like SMARTDRV--including many near-useless or currently useless ones. The important options should have been ranked for easier study.
The book has 10 questions at the end of every chapter--they're not modelled after the A+ exam, but they are fairly tough questions nonetheless. There's also a 75-page glossary, four free practice exams on the disk (and an additional 500 that can be unlocked for $79), and--joy!--samples of the many utility programs that Meyers recommends during the course of the book.
This text is highly recommended and an extremely good option for the A+ student--it definitely is an "All-In-One" stop. --William Steinmetz, Amazon.com
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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