Computers

under-the-bonnet technology

under-the-bonnet technology

iPod: The Missing Manual

July 15, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the book that should have been in the box

I bought an iPod recently for playing MP3 music files – and I was amazed to discover that it does a lot more than that. The iPod is simply an iPhone without the phone – and this means a lot more than you might imagine. It plays music, sure enough, but it’s also got a wireless card, and that means you can surf the Web, get your emails, watch videos on YouTube, check the weather or the state of your stock market investments – and all this from a device you can comfortably keep in your top pocket.

It has all these features – and yet it doesn’t come with a guidance manual. You can download a PDF from the iTunes site, but reading manuals on screen is no joke – and the chances are that you’ll miss some of the amazing features on this device which is in the process of revolutionising our connections with the online world. In the last year alone, more than 20,000 small applications (Apps) have been written for the iPod and iPhone – and these are so accessible and so cheap, they are driving down the price of software everywhere.

I like the approach of the missing manual series, because they’re written with users’ needs in mind. For instance, the first thing anyone buying an iPod probably wants to know is – how can I get music onto this thing and start listening? And that’s exactly what comes up first in the manual – how to download tracks from iTunes, how to import a CD, and how to organise the music to suit your own needs.

The main learning curve with the iPod is the nested menu system – and that’s fairly clearly explained. Basically, you’ve just got to drill down from one screen to another to find your stuff. But the manual is well illustrated with photos and screenshots, so that you know exactly what you should be looking at.

And nothing can go drastically wrong, so you don’t need to worry. It’s no wonder that these devices have become so popular so quickly. Quite apart from the ultra-cool design, you can download games, extras, and software novelties with no trouble at all. Many of them are completely free or amazingly cheap. For instance, the ‘Brushes’ graphic design program used to produce these stunning pictures costs only £2.99. At this price you can afford to give things a try – and it’s no tragedy if you decide not to bother.

The manual covers the iPod Touch, the Classic, the Shuffle, and the Nano, and it also gives you a full guide to iTunes – the site from which Apple hopes you will download most of your music files. They currently sell for around £0.79 per track – but companies such as Amazon are currently undercutting them at £0.49 per track in an effort to capture the market.

There are two other things I like about the Missing Manuals. One is that they are not slavishly uncritical. If there’s a shortcoming with the product, they’ll mention it. And two – they’ll show you how to get round the problem. There are call-out boxes packed with hints, tips, and hidden workarounds. I discovered a really useful feature for anybody using an iPod whilst on the move: you can locate the nearest free WiFi hot spot simply by finding your location on Google Maps, then doing a search on WiFi.

You can also download movies, audio books, games, podcasts, TV programmes. You can even couple up your iPod to your TV and watch videos on a full size screen. That’s why these slender hand-held computers are now regarded as something of a Killer Ap – because they have the capacity to combine all online services into one user-friendly, affordable device.

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David Pogue, iPod: The Missing Manual, Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 2010, pp.304, ISBN: 1449390471

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Netbooks – The Missing Manual

October 3, 2009 by Roy Johnson

small, portable, light, and cheap

I bought my first netbook just after the first Asus EeePCs were launched. At that time they were in short supply. Now the shops are full of them. You’re spoilt for choice. But what’s the difference between a netbook and a notebook (you might ask)? Well, netbooks are smaller, cheaper, and many of them use open source software such as Linux operating systems and the Open Office suite which does away with the need for (expensive) Microsoft programs.

They are also designed to be low on power consumption, and they don’t come with floppy or CD drives: you use USB ports instead. They have automatic Internet connection, and assume that you’ll be emailing, downloading software, and maybe even storing your work on the Web.

But one thing’s for certain: they won’t come with any user manual. That’s why this best-selling series from O’Reilly exists – to plug the gap left by equipment manufacturers who can’t keep up with support for their own product development.

Because netbooks have been such a huge success, versions using Windows have rapidly appeared, to cater for people who don’t want to tangle with new software. Fortunately, Jude Biersdorf’s book takes both Windows and Linux versions of netbooks into account. She shows you how to choose a netbook that will deliver what you require, then how to set it up using either of the most popular operating systems.

Even experienced computer users may not be comfortable in dealing with all these novelties all at once. She’s quite right – you’ve got to consider any shortcomings against the big advantages these devices offer. The keyboard might be a bit cramped, but the whole thing weighs just three pounds! Mine fits comfortably in my overcoat pocket.

If you’re new to Linux (she uses the popular Ubuntu version) there are full instructions on finding your way around. It’s very simple, because everything is based on big, clickable icons. The fact is that, even though open source software is completely free, it looks very much like Windows and Apple Mac when viewed on screen. All these interfaces are eventually starting to look the same.

She then deals with connecting peripherals. Your netbook won’t even have a mouse – so there are full instructions, and tips for downloading the latest drivers and software.

That’s where netbooks are really good : they update themselves all the time, and two clicks takes you to the latest version of whatever you want.

There’s a section on connecting to the Internet. You might not even need this. Mine recognised my home broadband as soon as I switched it on, and it’s never been a problem since.

But just in case you’re a first time user, she shows you how to set up an email account, how to make it secure, and how to navigate the web using a browser – Firefox and Google Chrome are recommended.

When it comes to standard use of computer software, most users will require a word-processor, spreadsheet, PowerPoint-type presentation – and so on – which are collectively called an office suite. She shows you how to deal with the stripped down version of the Microsoft Office Suite – which costs between $100and $150. I don’t know why she bothered, because she then goes on to deal with Open Office and Google Docs – both of which are free. You can even store your information on line with Google, which is a cost-free form of back-up.

[Why are all these services free? Because storage space price is plummeting, and these companies want you as a potential customer on their books.]

If you haven’t already got one, she shows you how to set up an email address and make full use of your browser to download extra tools – with the emphasis very much on free I was glad to note.

She also covers all the instant messaging software options and the social networking services, free phone calls, and picture-sharing. In fact there’s a whole section on how to edit and enhance your pictures – plus the same thing for MP3 and other sound files.

There’s also plenty on security, maintenance, upgrading, troubleshooting, and a really handy selection of online resources. So if your’re planning to buy or use a netbook, or if you want a user-manual to keep handy – this one will do the trick very nicely.

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J.D.Biersdorfer, Netbooks: the missing manual. Sebastopol (CA) O’Reilly, 2009, pp.320, ISBN 0596802234

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Optimizing Windows

June 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

advice on improving power, performance, and efficiency

This guidance manual is far more comprehensive than its title suggests. Although the main focus is Windows, it deals with optimizing all operating systems, plus offering tips on speeding up the boot process, freeing up memory, disk partitioning, and generally squeezing the best performance out of your system. David Farquhar’s approach is reassuring and friendly, and he provides commonsense reasons for each of the changes he recommends.

He starts with simple suggestions for freeing up disk space by deleting temporary files, obsolete programs, desktop icons, and all those fonts you never actually use. He’s keen on disk defragmentation, and points out that when Windows says it’s not necessary, that’s because its definition of 0% or 1% are so wide. He also recommends disk partitioning, and for each improvement he explains how to use a resident Windows tools utility if there’s one available, a commercial utility if it’s not, or a share/freeware program for which he gives the URL.

For instance, he describes a clean-up and optimization procedure using three of the utility programs he recommends – Norton Utilities, Fix It 99, and Nuts and Bolts 98. Then the same for a couple of uninstallers.

He also covers upgrading from Win95 to Win98, though so rigorous is his search for maximizing performance that much of his advice is focussed on what not to accept during customized setup. He ends with advice on hardware upgrades – memory, hard drives, video cards, even motherboards.

You can ignore the gaming and multimedia in the title. This is for anyone who wants to make sure their computer is running as well as it should. And it’s not just for optimizing and tweaking: it will teach you about the Windows operating system, as well as the underlying architecture of the PC.

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David L. Farquhar, Optimizing Windows for Games, Graphics, and Multimedia, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2000, pp.278 ISBN: 1565926773

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PDF Hacks

July 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

100 industrial-strength tips and tools

Many people think that PDF files are a proprietary Adobe Acrobat format, but in fact they are now a standard for other applications as well. Ghostscript and Open Office are open source (that is, free) programs in which you can create and modify PDFs, and even in Microsoft Word there is an option to save your work in PDF format. It’s also commonly thought that PDF files are simply for printing off onto paper – because that’s what they were first designed for. This book is designed to show you all the other possible ways of working with PDFs. Sid Steward also tells you about lots of other helpful associated tools and products. These include customising PDF viewers to make reading files more comfortable; speeding up Acrobat by controlling its many plug-ins; and shrinking down huge PDFs into much smaller files.

He also shows you how to create your own PDF files using a variety of different software programs; how to give your PDF files advanced navigation and interactive features; and how to integrate PDF files with existing web sites. He reveals lots of Acrobat’s hidden features, and shows you how to control and even improve them – though this is not stuff for the faint-hearted. Some of the hacks he describes require quite a bit of technical expertise, but he’s certainly very thorough – describing what’s required for all recent program versions and across different operating systems.

PDF files now come in three flavours – which he describes as dumb (electronic paper) clever (a loose sense of the original structure), and smart (full sense of structure) – with of course an increasing file size for each degree of smartness. He strongly recommends using style sheets to keep your master document as smart as possible. Style is separated from content: then you can generate the document in different forms.

Suddenly after a lot on scripting and other technical stuff, there’s information on what many people will want to use PDFs for – printing and publishing their own work. This is a gold mine of good advice, with listings of free resources thick on the page.

He even goes into the detail of how to convert PDF files for reading in Palm-type handheld devices (using a tool called Plucker); how to embed special fonts without causing file bloat; and there’s quite a lot on indexing and running searches on PDF files, as well as making the results available from within an HTML page.

He ends by showing you how to add interactive forms to PDFs, how to download and use all the free software programs for doing all these tasks, and even, if you feel up to it, how to get under the bonnet to re-program the Acrobat software.

This book was something of an eye-opener for me. Like many people, I had no idea you could do so much with the PDF format. The little-known tips and tricks in this book are ideal for anyone who works with PDF on a regular basis, including web developers, pre-press users, forms creators, and those who generate PDF for distribution

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Sid Steward, PDF Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2004, pp.278, ISBN 0596006551

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Peter Norton’s Inside the PC

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

encyclopaedic practical guide to the working of computers

Have you ever started to wonder how your computer actually works? We’ve all been using them for some time now, and it’s possible to get along without knowing what goes on under the bonnet (just as we drive cars without becoming motor mechanics). But when the man who cleans my windows revealed that he had built his own, I thought it was time to open the tower case and see what was inside. I did just that, closed it again quickly, and bought this book instead. John Goodman is the real author here: (Peter Norton is now a sort of trademark name).

He starts with an explanation of bits, bytes, and binary coding to establish the basis on which it all works. Then he gets down fairly quickly to an explanation of what’s inside your PC – from motherboard, disks, and memory to the CPU how it works, plus why it’s called a 386, 486, or a Pentium. The most important feature of this approach is that you’re given an explanation of how these features have evolved, and what’s likely to be the next step.

For this reason, there are plenty of good tips for people thinking of upgrading their equipment. He writes using a very conversational style, the advantages of which are ease and approachability, and the disadvantages padding and occasional redundancies. The result is slow reading, but a very detailed treatment of every topic. This is intermediate to advanced stuff, and the opposite of the “Dummies” approach – deep, slow, and thorough, rather than quick and shallow.

There’s a lot on disks – floppy, hard, zip, and CD-ROM – and he explains such detailed but vital matters as file allocation tables (FATs) and the differences between static and dynamic memory (SRAM and DRAM). He even covers keyboards, mice, monitors, and printers, which make this a useful resource if you want to understand how these peripherals talk to each other.

But the section I found most interesting was that on operating systems, because this gives him the chance to explain the continuing importance of our old friend DOS (“Windows is simply DOS in a dress”). This leads naturally into a discussion of OS futures and his guess that Win95 will be around for some time yet, Win98 is a mixed blessing, and Windows NT is a ‘safe choice’ but ‘finicky’. He even explains how to run more than one OS on a single machine. He finishes with a consideration of speech recognition software, multimedia, and 3D modeling, laptops, modems, then sign off with a quick tour of issues raised by the connection of PCs to the Net. As you would expect from a serious work of reference, there’s also a huge index.

So – he starts from the almost mathematical origins of ‘what makes a computer more than a calculator’ and takes you through every part of a PC, explaining how its parts work and relate to each other. I’m still not sure that I understand every detail of BIOS systems and interrupt vector tables, but now that I feel a lot more confident, I’m going to have another look inside the box.

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Peter Norton and John Goodman, Peter Norton’s ‘Inside the PC’, (eighth edition) Indiana: Sams, 1998, pp.721, ISBN 0672315327

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Search Engine Optimization

July 1, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how to maximise page rankings with search engines

I bought this book on search engine optimisation (SEO) because I trust Peter Kent’s work. His best-selling 2000 work Poor Richard’s Web Site was well-written, clear and friendly advice, and he spells out technology in a way which is easy to understand. He starts out here by explaining how search engines do their work, then provides a quick overview of how to optimise pages. This is an intelligent approach, because the details of SEO can become quite complex, and people fixing their own sites rather than paying an SEO agency will want to get on quickly with the job.

The process is one of gradual adjustment and refinement. It involves choosing the best keywords, creating good content, making submissions to the SEs, and generating incoming links. Each of these topics is then explained in greater detail. He always offers suggestions of free software and services where possible, and the resources mentioned are all listed at the book’s own web site. The only paid-for software he recommends is WordTracker which helps you to identify the most appropriate keywords for your site.

Most of the advice is perfectly straightforward and easy to follow – though it requires a great deal of your patience and time. It involves giving pages accurate descriptive titles, creating content which matches the description of what’s on offer, and avoiding tricks and anything which tries to put one over on the search engines

On the use of frames he is quite unequivocal. Don’t do it! But just in case you have done so, and can’t really change your site, he shows you how to eliminate the worst problems. The same is true for dynamic pages generated from databases, and for cookie-based navigation systems.

But then just to prove that he’s not being unnecessarily stuffy, he does have a chapter on how to trick the search engines – albeit after listing several reasons why you should not use them. These include stuffing keywords, making text and links hidden on the page, duplicating pages, making doorway pages, plus tricks with redirects and cloaking.

Next he deals with the business of submitting your site to the search engines – putting a lot of his emphasis on creating a sitemap. Once again he gives lots of convincing reasons why you should use the free submission systems and avoid the paid-for services.

He explains the way the system of page ranking works and why it is important that the pages of a site contain as many links as possible. This leads naturally to the difficult business of finding people who will link to your site. We get several link-swap offers a day on this site, but most of them turn out to be from what are called link farms – which search engines don’t like.

By the time he reaches the shopping directories he has to admit that all this link-building and site-promotion is a labour-intensive business. So there’s a section on how to get other people to do it for you!

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Peter Kent, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, Indianapolis: Indiana, Wiley, 4th edition, 2010, pp.382, ISBN: 0470881046

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Smartphones for Internet Access

April 11, 2012 by Roy Johnson

Today’s Internet users are relying on their smartphones or tablets for quick and easy Internet access, rather than laptops and desktops. And no wonder. It’s simply more convenient and portable. However, those with tight finances haven’t always been able to enjoy the benefits of 4G connectivity. But this will all change with the announcement of T-Mobile’s reinvigorated challenger strategy. This offers more affordable options to cash-strapped customers. When subscribers to T-Mobile compare cell phone plans with those of other service providers, T-Mobile comes out on top as one of the most affordable cell phone carriers with reliable service.

With mobile devices increasingly imitating each other’s features, it’s the quality and cost of the service that will determine user choice. T-Mobile’s challenger strategy, outlined by CEO and President Philipp Humm recently, focuses on making 4G services affordable and establishing growth for the business by investing $4 billion on network modernization and 4G evolution.

"We want to be known for delivering the best value in wireless because of the advanced technology we deliver at an affordable price," Humm said. "Over the next two years, we’re prioritizing and investing in initiatives designed to get T-Mobile back to growth in the years ahead—beginning with the transformation of our network."

Over 90 percent of T-Mobile device sales in the fourth quarter were from 3G and 4G smartphones, and data usage as well as smartphone adoption continue to accelerate. This has prompted the telecommunications giant to improve its data services to keep loyal customers happy as well as attract new subscribers.

"Today we operate America’s Largest 4G Network delivering a fast and reliable 4G data experience with Evolved High Speed Packet Access (HSPA+)" T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray said. "Launching Long Term Evolution (LTE) next year lets us take advantage of technology infrastructure advancements and benefit from a more mature LTE device ecosystem, while continuing to meet the growing demand for data with a powerful 4G experience."

T-Mobile plans to deliver better performance and coverage to its customers by improving its 4G network infrastructure with "new antenna integrated radios on many of its cell towers." The company may even be the first carrier in North America to accomplish this feat.

These technological developments should give users access to much higher rates of data transfer, and a smoother user experience. For instance, they can produce significant improvements to battery life, and quicker wake-from-idle time. This will be similar to an always-on connection. That’s the sort of service mobile device users increasingly expect in a fully-connected environment.

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The Essence of Computing Projects

June 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

project writing skills for higher education

Projects are now a major part of most undergraduate and postgraduate courses – especially in sciences, business studies, and information technology. Students are required to draw on a number of different but important skills to complete their projects, and it’s not easy to know what’s involved. The Essence of Computing Projects is designed to explain what’s required. It covers surveying the literature, project writing skills, documenting software, time management, project management, and presentation skills.

The chapters follow the logical sequence of undertaking a project, starting from defining the nature of research itself, choosing a project and writing a proposal, then planning what you are going to write – including timing and scheduling.

When it comes to the process of searching and reviewing the literature, Christian Dawson makes sensible distinctions between what is required at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The chapter which deals with actually writing the project confronts some of the most common problems – and how to overcome them. Running out of time, dealing with interruptions and computer crashes; dealing with your supervisor; and working in teams.

The latter part of the book deals with the presentation of your report in written form. Here he stresses the importance of abstracts and structure, presenting data in graphs, pie charts, and bar charts, academic referencing, and two items of special interest – commenting on program code and writing user guides.

Finally he deals with the oral presentation skills required to present your project. It also looks forward to what follows in academic terms – publishing your work, funding, and intellectual ownership and copyright issues.

If you have a project as part of the next stage in your studies, this guide will give you an excellent account of what’s required. You will have to flesh out the details – but that’s exactly as it should be, isn’t it.

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Christian W. Dawson, The Essence of Computing Projects – A Student’s Guide, London: Prentice Hall, 2000, pp.176, ISBN: 013021972X

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The Whole Internet

July 2, 2009 by Roy Johnson

updated version of first complete Internet guide

The Whole Internet was one of the earliest-ever computer books to become a best-seller. That was in 1992, when the first major wave of Net users needed information, and there as very little of it about. Ed Krol produced a manual which was well informed, comprehensive, and examined the technology in detail. However, it wasn’t very easy to read, and you needed to grapple with an arcane command-line interface which assumed you had grown up with Unix as a second language.

This new version is an update and complete re-write. It is based on the big changes which have come over the Net and the way it is used in the last eight years. Number one development of course is the Web, which moves up from a subsidiary chapter in the original to occupy the centre of this edition. Former features such as Gopher, Archie, and Veronica on the other hand are relegated to a footnote section called ‘Archaic Search Technologies’.

But this difference also makes the manual easier to read and understand. The emphasis has been changed from how the Net works, to how it can be used. There is far less impenetrable code cluttering the pages. Instead we get clean screen shots and nice photographs of what the Net looks like on screen, not at the DOS prompt. Ed Krol has been been very fortunate in choosing his co-author, and their co-operation has produced a far more readable book.

They cover all the basics which someone new to the Net would need to know. How to send email and follow the conventions of netiquette.; what to do with attachments; how to behave on mailing lists; understanding newsgroups; and how to deal with security, privacy, and Spam. They explain how to choose from a variety of Web browsers (including even one for the Palm Pilot). I was struck by how much more accessible all this technology has become in the short time since I struggled through the first edition.

This radical shift in user-centred design is also reflected by the inclusion of completely new chapters on Net commerce, banking, gaming, and personal finance. After a chapter on how to create your own Webages, there is an introduction to what are called ‘esoteric and emerging technologies’ – conferencing, streaming audio and video, and electronic books. This is a very successful attempt to cover the full range of the Net and its activities in a non-snobbish manner. They end with practical information – maximising the effectiveness of your Internet connection, searching techniques, and they offer a thick index of recommended resources.

The original Whole Internet may have been a more striking phenomenon because of its originality at the time, but this new edition has the potential to reach even more readers, largely because it explains the Net and shows how it can be used in a way which is much more attractive and accessible. It has gone straight onto my bibliography of essential Net reading, and I will certainly be recommending it to all my students.

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Kiersten Connor-Sax and Ed Krol, The Whole Internet: The Next Generation, Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 1999, pp.542, ISBN 1565924282

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Upgrading and Repairing PCs

July 10, 2009 by Roy Johnson

best-selling comprehensive guide to computer hardware

Scott Mueller’s title here is too modest. Upgrading and Repairing PCs is not just a repair guide – it’s a major encyclopaedia of computer components, their specifications, and a workshop manual on all aspects of dealing with PC hardware. His approach is very simple – and extremely thorough. He describes each major component of a PC in separate chapters, explains how it works, what it does, and even how it is made. You can use this manual for either an explanation of how things function, or for an up-to-date account of technical component specifications. It covers building, maintaining, and repairing all parts of a PC. It’s an approach which works – which is what has made this book a best-seller.

All the major manufacturers chips, motherboards, memory, hard drives, and peripherals are covered – so this is a valuable resource if you want to make comparisons before ordering new equipment. There’s even a comprehensive list of suppliers, plus advice on making choices.

The book also comes with a CD containing two hours of video tutorials. These are in fairly plain MP3 files. The process of installing components is described well enough in the book, but it’s made infinitely clearer when shown on screen.

He even shows you how to assemble your own PC – delivering the information in a fluent and cheerful manner. It occurred to me that these clips are also excellent tutorials for those who would like to know what’s inside their PC, but who don’t want to go though the heart-stopping experience of opening up the box.

The majority of the data here is very technical. This is a serious, heavy-duty book which has proved itself in the best-seller lists. It is now in its thirteenth edition and is just about as up-to-date as it’s possible to be. This is somebody who knows his subject inside-out.

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Scott Mueller, Upgrading and Repairing PCs, Indianapolis (IN): Que, 19th edition, 2009, pp.1176, ISBN: 0789739542

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Computers

under-the-bonnet technology

the book that should have been in the box

small, portable, light, and cheap

advice on improving power, performance, and efficiency

100 industrial-strength tips and tools

encyclopaedic practical guide to the working of computers

how to maximise page rankings with search engines

project writing skills for higher education

updated version of first complete Internet guide

best-selling comprehensive guide to computer hardware

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