Last Updated on April 18, 2017 by Dave Farquhar
Mailbag:
Book question; Linux; Hard drive
Optwin update. I spoke with Glenn Gilmore, a marketing director at O’Reilly, today, and he assured me there are plenty of copies of Optimizing Windows available. He suggested there must be a glitch in Amazon’s database, which he said happens fairly often. Since O’Reilly and Amazon do a lot of business, he’s probably in a position to say that.
So, to reiterate, the book is available, and there are enough copies in Tennessee to last quite a long time. If it’s not available at Amazon, please check Fatbrain or Barnes & Noble or another online reseller.
I crashed my machine and lost my post for today. Good thing that doesn’t happen often. I launched Word in order to start writing up a book proposal (don’t get too excited yet–just because I write a proposal doesn’t mean I do anything with it, and even if I do something with it, it doesn’t mean anyone else will like it) and Word never came up. Winamp fell silent. Mouse movements became as erratic as George Brett’s throwing arm in the 1970s. The mouse cursor changed to a vertical bar and never changed back. The caps-lock light didn’t light when I hit the caps lock key. Ctrl-Alt-Del brought up the task manager but wouldn’t let me do anything else. Yup. We’re hung. I waited five minutes to be sure. Nothing. It never came out of its coma. I hit Ctrl-Atl-Del a couple of times and rebooted.
Like I said, this doesn’t happen often. After I rebooted, I found out there are new critical updates for my computer. I wonder if that had something to do with my crash…? Significantly, Windows Update promptly crashed, but this time it didn’t take the system down. I’ve really gotta learn to just say no…
(And if it seems like I’m being overly dramatic, remember, this doesn’t happen to me often.)
So, what’d I lose? I’m trying to remember.
The rest of the story on memory. Visit www.pcguide.com/art/sdram.htm for the little tidbits I didn’t tell you last week. I didn’t leave out so much.
Optimizing Windows. It looks like it may be out of print. Amazon is now saying it is. I need to contact O’Reilly to find out for certain. They could do another printing, but the question is, are they willing? With O’Reilly mostly pulling out of the Windows market, I don’t know. My editor said this past fall that this title was safe–for now. But it’s not Fall 2000 anymore, so anything’s possible.
In the meantime, just because Amazon doesn’t have it doesn’t mean it’s unavailable. Check www.bestbookbuys.com/cgi-bin/bbb.cgi?ISBN=1565926773 to see who’s got it in stock and at the best price. Borders and Barnes & Noble, of course, are reputable. So are Fatbrain and Buy.com, all of whom were offering it when I checked.
Back to that proposal. So is finding out my book’s probably out of print related in any way to me writing a book proposal? Maybe. But just as significant, I got a newsletter from my alma mater yesterday, and an old archrival was very obviously showing off in the Class Notes. And the wording, and the details that were included, along with the details that were excluded suggests that the audience was intended to be limited. Maybe just to me.
That archrival needs to be put back in that archrival’s proper place (a legend in my archrival’s own mind), so I’m motivated. I’ll even use NaturallySpeaking to get this project out if I have to. Time to write a book that gets both critical acclaim and sales.
Speaking of publications… The February 2001 issue of Computer Shopper UK should be out now. This issue features the second installment of my “Optimise Your PC” series, this one with a focus on DOS compatibility.
Mailbag:
Book question; Linux; Hard drive
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.