Preston Gralla

This book provides a very cursory look at a large number of technologies. People that already know the material will be bothered by the numerous mistakes, inaccuracies and over-simplifications. There is a fair amount of repeated material and many explanations of outdated technologies.

However, this book is perfect for the technophobes in our lives.

I checked out this book from my local library, because the small thumbnail description of the Galaxy 5 was so terse and inadequate. This android had been given to me by my office and they made sure I could read business email on it, but nothing else. I could not figure out how to load special apps I wanted to use or even how to find them. So this book worked nicely for me.

This is a two-part book. Part One tells how to obtain shareware and how to avoid viruses. Part Two consists of more than 250 reviews, organized by category, of the best shareware programs.

Two diskettes containing six programs are packaged with the book: (1) COMMO, a communications program; (2) LIST, a superb file viewer (as of December 2008, I am still a satisfied user); (3) METZ, a task manager; (4) PKZIP, a popular compression program (as of December 2008, I am still a satisfied user); (5) show more TREEVIEW, a hard-disk manager; and (6) VIRUSCAN, a virus detector.

My Favorite Chapter. I especially like Chapter 16, "PC/Computing's Ten Top Shareware Picks:" (1) PC-write, a word processor (as of December 2008, I am still a satisfied user); (2) QModem, a communications program; (3) As-Easy-As, a spreadsheet that's as-easy-as 1-2-3; (4) PC-File, a database program (as of December 2008, I am still a satisfied user); (5) Hard Disk Director, a DOS shell program; (6) 4DOS, a general utility program; (7) IconMaster, a Windows utility program; (8) 4Print, a printer program; (9) Commander Keen, a game program; and (10) ZIPKEY, a ZIP Code and Area Code look-up utility program.

Bottom Line. By experience, I learned that the best shareware and public domain software are as good as the best commercial software, and much less expensive. show less

This is a test of the goodreads broadcasting system. This is only a test. If this had been a real emergency, I would not be typing this.

*I love the sneaky tester last name, hah!