NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, April 2004
Learn XP the Easy Way
by Thornton Jacobs
tjacobs@ipa.net
(click to email author)


After the last meeting I was asked about the illustrated Windows XP book that I bought to help me learn XP. Last night I went to the Rogers Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble and found several books that might be of interest to those just getting into XP and who may not be experienced enough to fight their way through it. I have written the following in case you feel that it might be worth while to put in the newsletter.

When I first got into desktop computing with a PC, there was a controversy raging over which version of DOS was better. Dos 3.3 or DOS 4.x. Of course DOS was a command line operating system and you keyed in the commands manually. That was before the mouse. That's right, that was before Windows was popular. When Windows 3.1 came along I bought and installed it without the faintest idea how to work with it. I tinkered with it and finally got to a point where I could do essential things but not much else. Finally, I found an illustrated book that told what to do and showed how to do it. That was what I needed. Now I have found myself in somewhat the same situation again. After years of using Windows 95 and 98, XP is somewhat different. I found a book at Wal-Mart that has colored illustrations showing how to get around in XP and take advantage of it's features.

Listed below are books that some members might find helpful. They are available at Wal-Mart and/or Barnes and Noble and perhaps Hastings.

    Windows XP Simplified. This is the one I bought.
    Windows XP Top 100 Tips And Tricks Simplified.
    Windows XP Quick Steps.
    Windows XP Plain & Simple.
    Teach Yourself Windows XP Visually.

There are others but this is a good sampling and might help some of the stress and strain in switching over.

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