BKPCFRFC.RVW   20021219

"PC Fear Factor", Alan Luber, 2003, 0-7897-2825-7,
U$24.99/C$38.99/UK#17.99
%A   Alan Luber www.alanluber.com
%C   201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN   46290
%D   2003
%G   0-7897-2825-7
%I   Macmillan Computer Publishing (MCP)
%O   U$24.99/C$38.99/UK#17.99 800-858-7674 info@mcp.com
%O  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789728257/robsladesinterne
%P   362 p.
%T   "PC Fear Factor: The Ultimate PC Disaster Prevention Guide"

The introduction states that the book is aimed at non-technical users,
but doesn't further refine the purpose beyond saying that bad things
happen to computers.  We are also told that a system administrator is
really a risk manager (which may come as a surprise to a number of
sysadmins), and that if you read this book you will never have to
worry about computer disasters again.

Even after reading chapter one I am not sure what the "root of all
computer disasters" is, although I suppose that there is a fair chance
that he means hard drives.  There is a lot of irrelevant detail about
the physical operations of drives, and Luber also is obviously
confused between old hard drive crashes (caused when the heads
physically contacted the platter, which was spinning at high speed)
and modern "crashes," generally caused by bad pointers or other data
errors.  In chapter two, Luber recommends, with opinions, but not much
in the way of proof or backup, a bunch of software.  Chapter three
offers us more opinions, this time about buying a PC.  Setting up a
new PC is covered in chapter four.  Most of chapter five prints
documentation for a couple of antivirus programs and a firewall.  A
decent discussion of backup strategy, and more documentation of a
backup program, is in chapter six.  A manual for another backup
program is in chapter seven.  Restoring a backup comes in chapter
eight.  Chapter nine advises on maintenance.  Some hoary old myths
about risky activities (using shareware, for example) are recycled in
chapter ten.

In one sense, Luber is right.  If you keep your data backed up, you
will be able to recover from pretty much any kind of disaster.  On the
other hand, I have said that in one sentence, and the book is over 300
pages long.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 2002   BKPCFRFC.RVW   20021219