M  O  R  E      I  N  F  O

The Written Word

The Good Publishers represent companies you can absolutely trust--books you can buy shrink-wrapped. The Okay Publishers are "try-before-you-buy"...scan the book before you purchase it, read a few paragraphs, check out the chapters towards the back and the appendices. Bad Publishers means Steer Clear.

Good Publishers

O'Reilly And Associates The undisputed masters of PC literature. I have never read or skimmed a bad O'Reilly book (and hey, they've got Schulman on their team, too...), and even their Wired/PC Week-titled Webmaster's Reference proved invaluable.

Addison-Wesley I haven't read any bad Addison books, but then again I've been sticking to their Undocumented series which is fantastic--of course, it has Schulman as an editor. I recently picked up The Undocumented PC and was more than impressed--written by the president of V Communications, the writer of Sourcer, Frank Van Gilluwe...this book is crammed with info, some of it a little esoteric, but worthwhile nonetheless.

Prentice Hall A good solid technology-documentation firm. With classics such as Norton's Assembly Language For The PC (the best way to learn ASM, and the second book I bought on assembly) and Barry Kauler's Windows Assembly Language And Systems Programming, they have a strong foothold in the PC technical world.

Okay Publishers

Microsoft Okay, they're the world's biggest software co., but let's face it, the Windows 95 Resource Kit is a wash. Ditto the training manuals. But if you can get ahold of some of the old API reference manuals (isn't it funny how there aren't any--at least not in bookstores--for Win32 API?) or the NT 4.0 Resource Kit, these are AWESOME and worth the price of admission.

SAMS Let's Face it: some of their books are very good, and some are very bad. This hols true for the Unleashed series as well: the one for Linux is excellent, the one for HTML & CGI...no good. In their defense, I have found their Borland C++ Consultant to be a well-referenced tome on my shelf, and their Memory Management For All Of Us to be one of the best PC techincal overviews that I have read (despite the "For Idiots" title...).

Waite Group Press I have some loyalty here, I used one of their books to learn C way back when. Their API How-To books are good but limited in scope; you go in knowing 30-60% of what they're going to show you...a bit sparse for a How-To. Other than that, it seems more or less on the level" their Bibles are excellent and I wish they'd update them, but the "for beginners" books are most definitely for beginners.

Sybex I have two experiences with Sybex: one passable (Master NT Workstation 4) and one excellent (NT4/Windows 95 Developer's Resource Kit). On the whole, judging from bookstore browsing, I'd say most of their Mastering series will allow you to do anything but that...avoid them. But they do have some surprising books...

McGraw Hill Yeah, I know, I wouldn't think of including them either, but then I glanced over at my bookshelf and saw The Computer Technician's Handbook and Repairing PCs (plus Virtual Reality Using Visual Basic, which I would read if I thought VB was worth my time to learn...), and I thought "Well, okay, they have some redeeming products."

Bad Publishers

QUE Sure, you might chance upon a good QUE book. The Upgrading and Repairing PCs guide is in my opinion quite good; it has gotten me through many tight spots. Their Using Assembly Language book was alright, let's face it I had to buy another assembly book, and both their Expert Solutions and their Killer series seem okay. But on the whole, QUE books are all formatting and no info. These guys are not techinically-oriented; I'd consier most of their fare to be "For Dummies" without the yellow cover.

New Riders Supposedly these guys are pretty good, but I haven't found a single one of their "Inside" books that is worth reading.