ACCU Home page ACCU Conference Page
Search Contact us ACCU at Flickr ACCU at GitHib ACCU at Facebook ACCU at Linked-in ACCU at Twitter Skip Navigation

Search in Book Reviews

The ACCU passes on review copies of computer books to its members for them to review. The result is a large, high quality collection of book reviews by programmers, for programmers. Currently there are 1949 reviews in the database and more every month.
Search is a simple string search in either book title or book author. The full text search is a search of the text of the review.
    View all alphabetically
Title:
Windows 95 in a Nutshell
Author:
Tim O'Reilly&Troy Mott
ISBN:
1 56592 316 2
Publisher:
O'Reilly
Pages:
503pp
Price:
£14-95
Reviewer:
Brian Bramer
Subject:
MS Windows
Appeared in:
11-1
Another of the excellent Nutshell desktop references from O'Reilly. This tells you how to configure and use Windows 95 (including those tricky system configuration details where the Windows help system does not help very much).

The book is in three parts. Part one an introduction to the GUI and tools (mainly for new users) and a history of versions (indicating the differences and enabling you to find out which version you have - mine is Windows 98 [Version 4.10.1998]). Part two is a detailed reference section covering the GUI, the control panel (where you configure Win95 features), the utilities, the batch language and dial-up networking (which I know causes many users headaches). Part three entitled 'Under the Hood' is for the user who wishes to understand how Windows 95 works and how configure system start-up and the registry. There are a number of appendices in particular 'System file and directory organisation' and 'Task Index' (a shorthand reference to system tasks and how to use them) which I found very useful.

A well written reference to Windows 95 with a helpful index, plenty of examples of commands and useful tips on what to do and not to do. One may ask why publish this in 1998 when Windows 98 is available. Many users will probably stay with Windows 95 (at least until Win98 has had time to settle down). It is still useful even if one has Windows 98; the commands, operations and look and feel is the much the same (assuming you don't customise the desktop) with a bit of added functionality (in particular web based) and system tools. I would expect a Windows 98 specific edition soon. Highly recommended!